No one truly understands pain, until they are face to face with their most serious hardships. It was silly of me to believe that the most significant sufferings I would experience in life would be broken bones or rejection. Never in a million years could I have comprehended the agony I would feel losing a loved one.

My pawpaw had been sick for a few months. In the hospital, out the hospital. It became a regular routine of ours. Life became desolate and eerie not having him home. Not home to show me something he thinks I would enjoy on TV, and not home to ask me to give him some type of sugar, something we both know he couldn’t have. Not home to, what I thought, was bothering me. I hated myself for feeling relief the first few days he was in the hospital. I no longer had to look after someone.

We always made a point to visit him multiple times a week. I remember walking into the dark, cold hospital for the first time and seeing him smiling in the hospital bed, with an unresponsive roomate. I thought that there was no way he would end up similar to that man. He didn’t fit in here, he was one of the strongest people I knew. Only when he was later put into hospice did I realize I was wrong.

One night, I appeared to be sleeping, but really I was awake and listening to my sister’s hushed whispers on the phone. I wasn’t sure who was on the other end, but I had a bad feeling it was about Pawpaw. My parents rushed to hospice the night before, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. My sister shook me “awake” and  asked me if I wanted to get up for school that day. I questioned why, hoping I didn’t already know the answer. After a few dreadful seconds, or what felt like an eternity, my sister responded, “Pawpaw passed away.” I felt a wave of cold pass over me. It was as if something in me had died with him. I shook my head and closed my eyes as tight as possible, trying to wake up from this nightmare. I turned over and pretended as if I was asleep, but I didn’t fake it for my sister, brothers, or parents. I did it for me. I thought pretending to be asleep would be less painful than accepting this harsh reality.

After hours of tossing and turning, I noticed the light peeking through my windows, and I knew I had to get up. As I walked through the house, I noticed how cold and dead it became. Even my dog failed to greet me. I passed by my pawpaw’s table, where he sat and watched TV everyday. I pictured him there asking me to do the smallest task for him, and I reluctantly doing whatever he told me to do. In this moment of daydreaming, I realized that I never truly showed him how much I loved and appreciated him when he was alive.

I continued on with my day, doing any and everything I could to busy myself. I completed useless tasks, but was too distracted to do anything right. I kept internally screaming at myself for not being there for him when I could’ve been. Maybe if I had been nicer to him and told him I loved him more, he would still be here. It was a stupid thing to think, but I was desperate for an answer. Why would God take away someone I loved so much? Was it because I never openly expressed my love?

That day I went to cheer practice. For what reason? My parents asked me the same question, but I insisted on going. Anything to help me escape from the house that held so many memories of him. At practice, I put on the fakest smile I could muster. I was so sure no one could tell something so agonizing had just happened to me hours before.

After I had been picked up from practice, my family went to Carettas to eat dinner. It seemed cruel to me that we will be eating out as if we were celebrating some achievement, not mourning my pawpaw’s death, but I was too mentally and physically exhausted to protest. Entering into the restaurant, the aroma of queso and salsa seemed to lift everyone’s moods, oddly enough. We sat at the table for what seemed like forever softly recalling every memory we could remember of my pawpaw. Occasionally, we even laughed. Only through this dinner did I understand the love my pawpaw must have felt being surrounded by this wacky family.  

I now realize I loved my pawpaw so much, but I barely showed it. My Pawpaw was always there. Always. I just wish I could have been there to tell him I loved him just one more time. When I see him again in heaven, the first thing I will say is, “I promise, I loved you.”