The most surprising thing about my grandpa’s August 2007 death is that it still effects me so profoundly on a consistent basis.

Sunday, I was sitting on the patio at Chipotle with one of my best friends and two virtual strangers when I started to think about Papa. I can’t even remember what made me think of him–if it was a squirrel (that he would have wanted to shoot) or if it was a gumball machine (he had bunches of penny gumball machines that he operated along with his stamp machine business)–but before I knew what was happening, I was crying over my burrito bowl, talking about how I am still sad about my grandpa’s death. I would have never expected that 9 months later, I’d still be at the point where I can easily break into tears upon thinking about him.

Last weekend I was cleaning out one of my cabinets, continuing the never ending quest to reach organization perfection, when I found one of the programs from his funeral. I had it tucked away in one of my journals, along with some letters from my mema–some of the last letters she sent to me while he was still alive. I read the letters and the programs and cried in my bedroom floor as a flood of emotion swept over me. My first instinct was to call my grandma and tell her about the letters, the program, and my shockingly fresh pain.

I would have, but I always have this feeling that I shouldn’t talk to my grandma about how sad I still am about losing Papa. I don’t know what part of me thinks that maybe she hasn’t noticed–I’m sure not a minute goes by that she doesn’t realize she’s alone in the house, alone doing the yardwork that they had done together for the last 60+ years. I reason with myself that maybe she’s having a good day. Maybe she’s having a day where she’s aware of her loss and her solitude, but she’s coping with it. I don’t want to bring my sadness to her, not if she’s busy remembering the years of good things.

I’ve never dealt with death in such a personal way before. When my Granny (mom’s mom) died, I was only 14 and though I thought I was old, I had no idea what I would learn in the next 10 years, and how all that learning would allow for me to understand my Grandpa’s death and its implications on a whole new level. When I lost Granny, I lost a grandma, a place to ride my bike and spend time away from home. I lost SunnyD in the fridge and special trips to get ice cream cones. I knew my mom was experiencing a lot of pain and sadness, but I also knew that we had expected her death for at least two years, and that we had been waiting for it day-in-day-out for a month. Her husband had died 15 years before her, and there was a sense of peace when she died. We knew that she was going to be laid beside him, and they would be together again, and that had a quieting effect on the sadness that we were feeling.

But now, I understood more. I know now what love and marriage feel like. I understand better the role of a Father, and how much my dad means to me even though I’m grown. I understand more about pain, health, life, and death. I understand now that I lost a grandpa, yes, but my Mema lost a husband, and my dad and his sister and lost their father, and each of the hundreds of people that came to his funeral were all experiencing the loss of my grandfather in their own unique way.

Best I can figure, the sense of sorrow and pain that I feel isn’t just me missing the only grandfather that I ever knew. It’s understanding how that loss also effects most of the people I know and love, and being sad about their particular angle of the loss, too. Maybe it’s selfish of me to cry because my Mema is a widow, and maybe that means I need to break down and find a therapist to talk to about how I’m still crying at work about something that happened 9 months ago. Or maybe it’s just my empathetic nature, and it takes more than 9 months to get over losing someone that you loved. I’m not sure.