« Previous | Next »
And Life Goes On…
Published on 18/04/06
by John Phillips
Ok so in my last blog I had mentioned some stuff along the lines of my grandpa passing away, and that I would unfold some of the thoughts that I was having with regards to the whole thing. Well even though I said that I wanted to write about the thoughts, I’m changing up the gameplan. I’m doing this because my mental state from the events of the weekend turned out a little differently than I had originally thought, and I’ll get to that later. So I’m going another route…..
My grandpa had been battling cancer for the past few years, and survived about 3 years longer than most doctors had said he would. He was a trooper, and fought hard though this all as best as possible. Even though the whole family knew that he could go any day, you still can never prepare yourself for the feelings that you get when it actually happens. That was one of the hardest parts to cope with, and I don’t know how many times my mom said that this weekend. Funerals suck, and there’s nothing fun about having to go to them. One of the hardest times in my life was the year my dad’s sister, and father died, within a matter of a few months. Those two funerals were like the most emotionally draining experiences ever. It takes alot out of you. That’s how I felt this weekend with the funeral. It is literally exhausting.
Aside from dealing with the dead of a family member, another really hard part was seeing the manly figures of the family be emotionally broken down. My Uncle Mike, Uncle Glenn, and my brother are like the three strongest people that I know, and to see them cry was almost too much to bare. And then there’s my mom who was very emotional too, and it SUCKS seeing your mom cry.
Apart from the bad, I can only just carry on the memories of my grandfather, and two jump out more than others. Everytime I think of my grandpa now, I picture me waking up at 5 a.m. to see him waiting outside for me to go fishing. Aside from family, I think fishing was the one thing he loved the most. So it was nice to be able to do that with him. We’d sit on the river all damn day, and have a great time, even if we came up empty handed. The second memory I have is of all the toys he bought for his house, just for the kids. He had some of the coolest race car tracks and remote controlled cars that he kept and broke them out when I used to come over. I guess that was how he’d suck us in………and it worked!
I hope you’re not picking up a sad tone in my writing, but I’m not sitting here sad at all. Yes it sucks that my grandpa passed, but life goes on, and there are the small things that make getting through hard times alot easier. What made my weekend was the kids. I think they played a huge roll in brightening up the mood, and I had so much fun playing with them this weekend. They were the ones that physically exhausted me!! And it was all worth it. The kids just went through the weekend completely naive (because they ARE kids) about what was going on, so they just carried about like any other day, and it was really easy to absorb that positive energy that they gave off. And that is why my emotional mind state was at ease by the end of the weekend.
As I said, life goes on……………and vacation is hours away! With all that has been going on lately, this vacation is going to clear my mind for the things that are going to go on in the next few weeks. I’m very excited. I more than likely will not be blogging from NY because there’s too much to do. It’s gonna be bomb as hell. I started packing for it today, got all my errands out the way, so I’m ready to party and shop. I told Travis that me and Kell are gonna walk around with “I Love NY” t-shirts and pouches, haha. That was of course sarcastic but I’m sure we will look like quite the tourists walking around…………oh well. So you better believe that there will be an extra long blog suming up the NY visit……………so until then.
peace