Bring him back to me all in one piece. Warm skin, opened eyes. No longer refusing food. Embracing life. Full of strength and confidence. You lost both so fast. You should have gone with those at least. Proudest man I’ve ever seen. Nice suits, books for days. Mom got her nerves from you. I got your humor. You got my love and my respect. Want you back. Dressed in flannel, glasses on. Football Sundays. Sneaking snacks so grandma doesn’t yell. Peanut butter sandwiches made with the sweetest jelly by the toughest man. Was never hard for you to baby me. Calling to hear about my grades. Loving Matilda like a person. Never afraid to love grandma through all of your fights. Teaching me how to love. Most importantly taught me how I deserve to be loved. Every action I do I think of you. Are you looking at me now? Do you see me laying down in the dark, headphones in, shaking almost too much to type? You make me not alone. You see how people treat me and I know you make notes of it. You see it all. I saw you at my graduation. As they called the names major by major I closed by eyes. Felt dizzy from the yells. Didn’t care. When I closed them, there you were. Next to grandma. Repeatedly saying I was your grand daughter. You always thought I’d do something life changing. I don’t see that. I try. I open my heart so wide and don’t feel an epiphany. I work 50 hours a week with people who think I’m nice and funny. Known for being tough to the people who never listen. I try. Is this what you saw me doing? I saw you playing with Derek’s babies. Laughing at how they looked like him. My dad said he asked you before he proposed to my mom. He loves you. Grandma said you asked her to dance the day you first met. I’m sure it was to something slow. I’m sure if you tried, you’d know what song played. Do you still hear that song? When grandma goes to weddings on her own now, do you see yourself fixing her hair? Are you in a suit? Do you know that your ideal? You make me feel crazy. Heads been a mess for a week. Don’t know when I stopped being myself. I want you to tell me what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m trying so hard to do anything right.
11/20/11 beautiful Daniel.

“what do you normally do when I’m gone?”… “wait for you to come back”

Honesty is the hardest concept nowadays.

My grandpa is pretty much the only person I need right now and always. Feel so fucking lost without him.

Though you’re gone for good. It’s like you’re with me.

The one person I so badly want to talk to is the only person I can’t talk to. I have picked up my phone numerous times and stared at your name. Wanting so badly to somehow hit the call button and it would reach you wherever you are. I keep trying to come up with what kind of inspirational, loving things you would tell me. You would say that I am doing too much, that I need to enjoy my life, and most importantly how proud you are of me. I miss calling you and hearing your excitement about what classes I was taking. I call grandma a lot for advice, in a way its the closest thing I have to talking to you. Things just seem harder without you. My heart not as whole, my laugh not as happy, my life not as good. Why isn’t there a way to reach you? Why can I post this on the internet for anyone in the world to see but I can’t come in contact with you. I think a lot about what I would give up in order to talk to you again. It’s funny how worthless things become when you consider being able to trade them all for you. I’m graduating in two months. On the top of my cap I will write your name. That way I know you will see it from up there. It seems I break down more when I am out with people I love. For instsnce, I went bowling on Saturday. I was surrounded by people who genuinely love me and I love just the same. But still for some reason every time I went to the bathroom I found myself literally sobbing. I just stood there in the stall and couldn’t stop. I could have easily ran to Stef or Pankit or Chris and told them that at that moment I just needed the tightest hug. I could have grabbed Stef and we would have shared funny stories about our Grandpas. She would have understood. I could have just fallen into Pankits arms and without any explanation needed he would have held me until I was okay. I want to let people in when I feel vulnerable. I want a day to pass that I can think of you and not feel like I am suffocating. I know this will come with time.

This older man at my job reminds me so much of my Grandpa. Now if only he could look, smell, and talk like him.

Ever since I lost my grandpa, I feel like I can’t handle life anymore. I feel like I am constantly on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. I have never cried so much in my life. I find myself watching the clock everyday and hoping the time goes by faster. I’m not sure why I want the days to go by fast because there is nothing that I am looking forward to. Well, thats not as accurate as it sounds. There are a few things. Actually, many thing. But not one of those things, I feel, will make me feel okay again.

Sometimes I feel like I have lost myself to this sadness. This constant pain in the pit of my stomach that only worsens as the day progresses. When bad things used to happen they hardly made a difference in my day, now any little thing literally ruins my entire day.

I want to feel invincible again. I want to laugh so hard that it makes my belly hurt. I want to look forward to going out, instead of being anxious the entire time that maybe something bad will happen. I want to be excited to talk to the people I love, it seems now I am holding my breath every time they speak, as if I am preparing myself to hear bad news.

I can count on two hands the amount of horrible things that have happened to myself and the people around me. So many loses of loved ones, so much heart ache. I don’t ever remember the world being so cruel. I think back to when I was in high school and I would be upset. I wish I wouldn’t have let those small things upset me, I wish someone would have told me that those times were the better times.

I don’t expect to feel 100%, or great, or even good. I just want to feel okay. Why has that suddenly become so unattainable?

There is a picture on my book shelf in my room of my grandpa. He is reading a book, as he always was, with a smile on his face and with one leg crossed over the other. It is supposed to make me happy. It is supposed to make me feel close to him again. It is supposed to provide me with comfort. It is supposed to do a lot. All it does is make me miss him so god damn much. It’s been a month since he’s been gone. Yet every Sunday at 6:00 I feel like my heart is being strangled.

I have a lot of guilt about him. I guess thats another reason I’m not taking this well. The day he died Pankit&I saw him, I kissed him, I told him I loved him, I told him I was sorry he was in pain.. and then I left to see a movie. I left at 4, he died at 6. I knew that morning that he wasn’t going to make it, I knew it. But still I woke up and thought that I could still save him. I played over different strategies to make him healthy again. I though I would make him laugh so much that he would be filled with such joy that all the bad in his body would have to be pushed out because of all the good that was entering. My grandma told me he wanted three more things out of his life: Thanksgiving with his family, to see my cousin graduate, and to see me graduate. He got none of those. 

I didn’t do so well on an exam I took last night, or at least I don’t think I did. The first thing I did when I stepped outside of the classroom was call my Grandma’s house. I left a voicemail saying, “Hey Grandp…” and then I hung up. I guess I had forgotten he isn’t there anymore. I think that after so many years of calling him when I needed him most, I forgot it was no longer an option.

I am scared that I am going to push away every person that means something to me. That I am too scared to love them and lose them. At random times I find myself imaging my life without them and then I have to force myself to not think about that anymore. I don’t know why I do this. I figure if I get it in my mind that they are no longer with me, that if they ever aren’t with me, I won’t be as shocked. But I don’t want to be without these people. I want to suffocate them with love. 

When I was younger my dad used to sit with me, close his eyes, and move his hands along my face. He would tap my nose, rub my cheeks, and feel the outline of my face. He told me he did this so that when I was at my Mom’s house and he was going to sleep at his house, he could close his eyes, put his hands in the air and remember my face. He had heard of soldiers doing this to remember their families while away at war. I do this to Pankit sometimes. I don’t know if I ever told him this story or if he thinks I just am infatuated with his face( and I am). But I want to remember how his nose turns out on the sides, how his smile lines are so perfectly curved, the fullness of his lips, and the beauty of his eyelashes. I want to know this. I want to never forget what perfection feels like.