You know, it’s been a while since I last posted an update. Honestly, longer than I realized until the other day when I updated the SSL on this. Thanks NameCheap.com, not sponsored, for that. $10 for a year rather than the whatever price GoDaddy charges. $65 I think. But the purpose of this isn’t to compare the prices of GoDaddy products to alternatives.

This is honestly just about reflecting on what life is. It’s the craziest thing, I honestly didn’t think much about it until my grandfather died. My grandma maybe started it, but my grandpa got the wheels turning. Tased the hamster on the wheel, if you will. I joke, of course about that, anyone that would willingly tase a hamster is probably not someone I want to hang out with.

But the death of my grandparents affected me in ways I honestly didn’t expect. Like when I was in college, I think I was 20, this is also something I may have covered before, but when I was in college, my great grandmother passed away. She was 85, she lived a good long while, but before I moved away from my home state my great grandmother was the family member I was closest to, except maybe for my mother. So although we weren’t right across town close anymore, she was still someone that was in my thoughts when my thoughts drifted to family.

Anyway, the reason I mentioned that one is it affected me in a strange way itself. I didn’t cry when I got the news, it was like well what the heck, a stronger word seems fine there, but withholding so anyone could potentially read this.

I was close to my great grandmother when I was growing up. Some of the fondest memories I carry from my childhood take place in my great grandmother’s house. Fast forward through some details, and I made it home for my great grandmother’s funeral. It feels weird to refer to her as great grandma, because I know people have nicknames for their grandparents, insert the nickname you have either heard of or maybe even use, but my great grandma was exactly that. We didn’t have a nickname.
Actually I came back for an edit for this. See I got to thinking about my Aunt Kathy, and she was exactly that. She was Aunt Kathy, to call her Kathy seemed weird. She was Aunt Kathy. My Great Grandma was Great Grandma.

Anyway, I made it home, and I went along for what was to take place, and through everything I didn’t cry. I mean I felt sorrow for what was taking place, but I just didn’t feel the emotions to cry. I sat through the whole funeral. Talked with my grandpa. it was his mom that I’m referring to, talked to family that made in, etc., but I couldn’t cry. Finally just before the close of the funeral at the chapel, and before we proceeded to the cemetery the chapel plays this music. I don’t know what it was, if you had to hash-tag it you’d probably find it under #heavenly but when that music started I just broke to pieces. I probably looked like a hot mess. I remember falling to pieces in front of my cousin Casey, she also crying because we both lost our great grandmother and they’re about to close the casket for the last time. I really didn’t know how to react, I saw Casey and I offered a hug. I don’t remember being a particularly touchy family. That may have been from my personal preference. I don’t particularly like being touched, but at that moment it worked. I’m probably over analyzing it, but it just seems liked let me lean on you, and she in turn was like only if I can lean on you, but it works because we’re supporting each other. Kinda interesting to think about as I type, but that not including pets and things of that nature was my first experience with death.

Fast forward through some more of what made up my life and you have my grandmother dying… Let me preface this with something. When I refer to my grandparents dying I mean from my mom’s side of the family. I had grandparents on my dad’s side, but I don’t remember anything about my grandfather on that side, and I only have 1 memory of my grandmother on that side. Was one year, I don’t remember if it was for a reason like my birthday or Christmas or just because but she was bringing me a present. It was a stuffed animal plush, a bloodhound looking dog with a yellow ribbon around his neck, and I named him Wrinkles. Dad wasn’t around so I have limited memories of that side of the family. Both grandparents on my dad’s side of the family passed away when I was young, but I had such limited interaction with them it didn’t really register.

Anyway, I was working and just keeping on with life when my grandma got sick. Wasn’t a particularly long illness, but she got sick, and I drove from Nevada to Iowa to be there for the inevitable that they told us was coming…

Actually, I have to correct myself there. I did have one more brush before we came here… well okay 2, lemme tell about the less connected one first. When I was in college I had room mates that liked to party, one of their friends was the guy you’d go to for party favors, but he was run down in an apartment complex parking lot in Tempe in the early 2000s.

Next more relevant scrape with death was when my uncle got sick. Substance abuse problems. It’s sickening what that stuff can do to some people. No judgement there. I wish we could fix everyone that evil gets it’s hooks into. Not to say I think all drugs are bad. But this one was one we saw coming. We didn’t know a date and time, but we knew my uncles behavior, so it was a question of when does the call come in. Where was he or what was he doing when it happened? Wasn’t a call like that actually that we got. His body gave out on him. He had to go to the doctor and they pretty much told him, you’ve beaten your body to such a state we can’t fix it. So, it was sad, but it wasn’t unexpected. I wondered into the days leading up to that eventuality how my grandmother would cope with that. Losing a child. Every parent’s nightmare I would imagine.

Side note on that. After that happened I had an aunt that said my grandma blamed that on my grandpa. Said he was to spoiled by his dad growing up. My aunt further thought that my grandpa probably didn’t care either, but I corrected her. I said I had talked to my grandpa about this very thing, and it bothered him, and in fact he had even blamed himself for this. So while I had people that were willing to throw shade at family over how they assumed other family members were reacting, it wasn’t true. I told her as much too. I said I understand in some circle he is evil incarnate, but you got the wrong guy here. I talked to him about this and I let him tell me how he was feeling. It gave a whole new lens to view the whole thing though. He cared. He wasn’t indifferent to burying his son. It mattered.

Anyway my grandmother’s passing got me to open my eyes to the world around me. Little bit anyway. It was one of the first major changes I can recall where it was actually registering that people die for no other reason than they die.

My great grandmother died but she was 85. Old people die, and I was 20 so I wasn’t quite grasping at what was going on. My uncle died, but he was who he was. Was sad, but not unexpected. He was always up to something. Not a biblical person, but let ye without sin cast the first stone.

My grandparent’s though, that started messing with me. My grandma and grandpa were always the steady in the chaos. Didn’t matter what else was going on in the family, grandma and grandpa had everything on lock. They didn’t get along much together, and that’s why their separation was a good thing, but they were both there when they needed to be. Not without fault because who amongst us is, but they were always there, and for it to be anything else was weird. For me anyway.

How this all becomes relevant is I’ve started to take a closer look at my life since this all started happening. Each death making me look closer at every aspect of my life, and the one that my grandpa taught me was to finally wake up honestly. To look at where I was in life and how to get myself to the next level. It’s still a work in progress, but I look at how I viewed things and how, “when I get to it” applied to how I approached a lot of things, as opposed to finally realizing there is an expiration date on all of this, and that date you see 10, 20, 30 years down the line is not guaranteed. Made we realize Peter Pan is a story and we don’t live forever, so put down the book, pick up a pen and write your own story. Not in some far off land of someday, but in today. Gotta be honest. It’s been illuminating. Made me realize, adulting takes effort, but I got this. I see who I came from, maybe a little more clearly than I did in the past, but I know what those that came before me could do, what those that are still here continue to do, and what I should be capable to doing as well.

It’s strange asking yourself “Who am I?” when you’re over the age of 40. Well I assume it is anyway, anyone reading this could be like “No, dude that’s called a mid-life crisis.” But I find myself asking that question and well, I’m a work in progress, but I find that it’s interesting what can happen when you put effort into something, for so long I didn’t bother. Now I worry did I waste too long not bothering? Adulting takes effort, but when you compare it to where you were before, it’s no question.