I've always been a fairly quiet person, so over my lifetime, I've always found it easiest to get my point across by writing it down. I'm a little more vocal now, but the writing still works best. Before, in the form of letters. Now, in the form of this blog.
Some people who still don't know me that well will occasionally ask why I'm still here in California, since I spend a pretty good amount of time stating the fact that I hate it here, and that I can't wait to leave. Shortly before my grandmother Caroline passed away, I came to visit with her for a week and a half. It was a case of it likely being the last time I was going to be able to do so, and as she was one of the two most important people in my life, I took my opportunity when I could. My brother Alfred Jr. and I had one really great day with her 2 days before I went back to Bellingham. It was one of the rare occasions she was coherent enough to have a real conversation, and we had her laughing and cracking jokes, which she hadn't done in quite a while. Losing both of your legs, and having to have dialysis 4 times a week, and having been in the hospital system because of it, has a tendency to destroy a sense of humor.
A week later, she passed away, and as I had promised her I would the last day I saw and spoke with her, I came back to California to stay and try and rebuild relationships with the family I still had here. She never asked for anything, from anybody, so those of us who truly loved her always kept our promises to her.
Sorry grandma, I tried. I just can't do it anymore.
I've been here now for just short of two years, and as much as I miss you horribly....
I'm glad your not here to see what has become of our family.
The fighting over the money (what little there was), and the house started the day before we even buried you next to grandpa, where you wanted to be since he left us four years ago. You never had to say it, I saw it in your eyes from the day we buried him, until the last time I saw you.
We should all be so lucky to share even part of the love you had for each other, a love that spanned over 60 years, since you met in high school. A love that you gave to everyone around you, your children, your grandchildren, and even the few of your great-grandchildren you got to meet.
Everything that is good in me, I got from you.
Which is why I can't understand what has happened to everyone else. How the people that I thought I knew all my life are now all completely different people. Well, not all. Uncle Marty is still the same. Like me, he finds it easier to just keep to himself, keep his private life private, and to not see how ugly it all is now.
We don't see the twins anymore. After they took all the cash they could find in your room, and took everything they knew they could sell, they haven't been back. Gil still keeps to himself, and doesn't really talk to anyone anymore. Anna is still taking care of Armando, who at 36 should be more than capable of taking care of himself, yet refuses to do so, and even the fact that he spends her very hard earned money to keep himself in meth, or whatever he happens to be into that day, is another reason I can't stay here anymore. I've already dealt with that for a good portion of my life, with my mother and Carolina having severe drug and alcohol problems themselves. I can't live with or around that again.
When you and grandpa left this house, all the love that used to be here went with it.
This house, which used to be my one safe haven. is now just an uncomfortable place I don't like being in.
So when I leave this house, it will be for the last time.
The honest truth is, I can't live here with you and grandpa being gone.
I miss walking out into the living room at 11 or noon, and grandpa making jokes about how he was just coming to make sure I was still alive, because it was already so late. I miss the times when you would yell at grandpa, to slow down because he was driving too fast, and he would just give you that naughty little boy grin, to which you would always shake your head and smile, and about 2 minutes later, the process would start over again. Sorting through boxes of pictures and things after you passed away, finding letters I wrote you, and the fact that you still had every single one. Walking around the house and seeing so much of you here, and always wishing with every fiber of my being that you would come walking out of the kitchen, or that I will walk out back and see grandpa out back practicing his putting. I still find his golf balls in random places in the back and front yard.
Those things, and a million more wonderful memories of you both are the only things I will take out of this house when I go. It's more than enough, because nobody can take that from me.
It's just not home without you.
Reepicheep. The mouse knight of Narnia. Absolutely bad ass. Fact is, if you've read the series, you know how much of a primary character he really is.