Hi. I'm alive.

So, as most of you know, my grandfather died on Saturday morning. This explains my absence from all end of vacation and start of school events.

Saturday my parents woke me up at around 7:30. My dad was standing over my bed and my mom was in the doorway and the first thing I remember is opening my eyes very suddenly and my dad saying "Your grandfather died this morning."
And I didn't cry or anything. I just said "Okay" and got out of bed. In my head it was like "Okay, so now it's happened, we're prepared, let's go".

Soon after, when we had all showered and dressed, we were on our way to my grandmothers. I go in between saying "Grandma and Grandpa's" and "Grandma's" now when I refer to her apartment. Their apartment. I'm so confused.

Saturday was mostly made up of figuring out who needed to be called and when the funeral would be and all that stuff. When we first got there the people from the funeral home where there taking my grandfather away. My dad went up to the apartment, called my cell phone to tell us what was happening, and then my mother and I went to get some breakfast since neither of us could deal with being there when my grandfather was taken away. After that it was a lot of preperation stuff. We sent out a mass e-mail to a lot of people saying what had happened and when the funeral would take place. There were lots of calls made. My grandma was doing really well, doing what she needed to do. Every once in awhile she would start to cry. Once I gave her a hug and she said to me, "You'll remember him forever and always, won't you?" and I said yes and she said "He wanted to see you grown up so badly, but he knew you were turning out well. He was so proud of you. He wanted to be at your wedding." By this time we were both crying.

By about 4 I was ready to go. I couldn't really be of any help, I was exhausted, and I just couldn't stand to be there anymore so my mom took me home and then went back. At this point Matt came over and kept me company. We made cookies and just sat around and watched TV and everything was really calm and nice and it made me feel better. I'm very grateful to Matt for that.

Sunday it was more preperation. Buying food for after the funeral and when my dad and grandmother and aunt and uncle sat Shiva. Shiva is this Jewish thing where the immedeate (I spelled that wrong) family mourns for a week and they just stay at someone's home together and people visit and bring food and stuff. There's all these crazy rituals that go along with it, which we're mostly not following. But they are sitting Shiva, and spending days at my aunt's house and just mourning and having visitors and little services at night and stuff.

Today was the funeral. It was decided that my dad, aunt, and uncle would all say something at the funeral. Then my cousin decided to read part of a book he read to my grandfather before he died. It was a book for kids about when someone they love dies. It was a really sweet passage, about how you're not alone when you're sad and when you're sad because you've lost someone, you know you really loved them. I decided I should probably write something to say also. My grandfather would have liked that. So I was up till about two or two thirty writing what ended up only being about a page. I left out a lot of stories and things that I just couldn't figure out how to put into it.

We met at my grandmother's first. My aunt was making my cousin breakfast, which I then took over doing so she could get ready. I made everyone some hot chocolate, too. My dad and aunt and uncle all took turns reading what they were going to say. We were timing it to make sure they didn't take too long since Jewish funerals are usually pretty short. By the time my dad was finished we were all crying. My cousin who's almost ten was left just trying to hug us all. He's a very sweet boy. He always wants to make everyone feel better.

After that people sort of split up to finish getting ready. At one point I heard the music from this music box that my granparents have had forever playing from somewhere in the apartment. I used to play that music box all the time, so I followed the sound. I found my cousin in my grandparent's bedroom holding up the music box to one of my grandfather's pictures. He said he was playing it for Grandpa and that he thought he might like it. That made me start crying all over again, and I just stood there with him while he played the music box and cried and smoothed out his hair 'cause I couldn't think of anything else to do. I'm glad my cousin did that. I think it was something I would have liked to do, had I thought of it. It was a nice way of saying goodbye.

Then it was time to go to the funeral home. After we got there, my grandmother, dad, aunt, uncle and I went and actually got to see my grandfather. I know, this is weird and maybe gross and whatever you think, and no one thought I would actually want to see him, but I felt like I had to. Like if I didn't I wouldn't really believe he was gone. It was kind of frightening. He looked the same, just he didn't have his glasses on. I felt like the girl in "My Girl" when she freaks out about the kid not having his glasses. I didn't freak out, but it did bother me that he wasn't wearing them. He always wore them. The guy closed the casket and we went back to where the rest of the family was waiting.

People came from all over, people we really weren't expecting. Some cousins from Virginia drove up today and drove back after the funeral. The just wanted to be there. So many people came, it was kind of a nice feeling that so many people loved him so much. I couldn't help feeling like I was waiting for someone though. Like I kept looking at the door thinking someone else would walk through. Eventually it passed through my mind that maybe it was my grandfather I was expecting. Everything felt unbalanced and strange without him there standing next to my grandmother. I kept forgetting why I was there.

After everyone had greeted our family and everything, the service started. It was decided that I was going to be the first to speak, which was kind of scary, but I just felt like I had to do it. The Rabbi said some prayers, then called me up to speak. I started crying as soon as I got up there. Most of my speech was said in tears. I hadn't read it in front of anyone ahead of time because I knew this would happen and I was afraid I would chicken out if I did it ahead of time. I finished and went back to my seat next to my father. Next was my uncle, then my aunt, then my father, and the my cousin. It was kind of funny to see my cousin up there since he wasn't really tall enough to be seen over the podium. But he spoke very well. Everyone was crying.

It ended and they took my grandfather out and we all went in a procession to the graveyard. We said Kaddish, which is the mourner's prayer, and everyone took a shovel full of dirt and threw it on the casket. My grandmother was really crying again, and we all held on to her while people shoveled. It was really incredible to see all the people who had come to the graveyard. A lot of people don't usually do that, according to my mother. And most of them shoveled some dirt. They all just loved my grandfather, I guess, and wanted to say goodbye. He's near some relatives. That's good, I guess. Not so alone.

We went back to my aunt's. My mom was pissing me off a lot by this time, but I didn't say anything. My mom is a control freak a lot and sometimes when people don't do things her way or don't see things her way she criticizes them. Not to their face, but to me. Which sometimes I can deal with, but you know...it's also my family. So I just wanted her to leave me alone for a lot of it. Like when she would try and comfort me I'd sort of shrug her off because it felt like she was being two faced sort of. I know she didn't mean to. She loved my grandfather. She just has issues with other family members that at times I wish she would keep to herself. Especially since sometimes I feel like it's me and my mother against my dad's family and I don't like that. But anyway. We went back to my aunt's house. I fell asleep on the couch in their den while my cousin played video games because I was so tired. The rest of the day was just sitting around and stuff. I talked to Matt on the phone a few times which was nice. I got home around 10 or 10:30 and now I'm really exhausted, so I think I'll stop writing now. I hope I didn't creep anyone out too much. But this has been my life the past few days.

So...
Yeah...

Good night.