Cherry Pie.

Today is going to be a long day. It's three in the morning, and I'm wide awake. Edgy, because of a death in my immediate family last night. It wasn't an unexpected death, but it's a jarring one for me. My grandfather was 89 years old, and physically he just gave out. He'd been fighting the inevitable for almost a year, it'd been a slow decline up until last week or so.

Yesterday I was walking down South Street when I got the feeling like something wasn't right. It bugged me all through class, and sure enough, when I left CCP there was a message from my aunt. I went from class right up into Bustleton to go see my aunts and my grandmother, who's still very much in shock. She spent 54 years with this man, and now he's gone.

I have a real issue when it comes to people I'm close to passing because although I have emotional ties to those people, I also have a very serious clinical phobia of cadavers/dead folks. It's been that way since I was a little kid. I can't deal with hospitals or funeral homes because of it, and when someone in my life passes, that phobic reaction is still intact. It's hard enough for me to be in the same building as the body, let alone see it. I also would really rather not have the memory of that sight. You don't gain anything by seeing a corpse, except maybe mental scarring. I chose not to see that because there's other things I'd really rather remember than someone being at their worst.

I just saw this man up and talking two weeks ago. He asked me how I was doing with speaking/writing in German, and if I still had his Schiller book and his dictionary. (I do, but for the life of me can't remember where they are right now.) He told me stories about when he was working, working with people who didn't speak English. After he'd retreated back to his bedroom, he continued to listen to the conversations taking place in the dining room. I was talking to my aunt and grandmother about how my loan money is being divided and what I intend to do to get out of my rut. He told my aunt to tell me that he thought my idea was pretty sound and that I "have a good head on my shoulders".

About two weeks before that, I'd had dinner with him at the house. He was tearing up a cheesesteak and telling me about how milk is gross so he ate his cereal with fruit juice. I laughed at that because I also find milk to be disgusting on most occasions. (Weirdly enough, it's one of those things that went from my grandfather to my father to me.) We had a laugh over the idea that we both hate ketchup once it's been in the fridge, too.

Right after my birthday back in January, I went to go visit him. We all ended up at the table, eating cherry pie and talking about Johnny Cash. Apparently he was the original monster-movie fan too. He saw Dracula and Frankenstein in theaters during his day, and showed them to my dad when my father was a kid. My father showed them to me...and a new generation of dork was born.

For all it's worth, he lived a long and full life. He was almost 90 years old, a World War 2 veteran, seven kids, and countless grandchildren. It still sucks, because now that house is going to feel immensely empty to me and everyone else, but when it's time it's just time. And it was obvious that the time was coming up on him. If there was one thing I could say, and I'm sure he knows it, it's "thank you". This is the man that gave me my culture, and so many of my weird quirks. I'm going to miss him.

Taken just a month and a half ago.