Here’s to my grandpa who I lost yesterday to Covid-19. I’m so grateful to have had him in my life for so long to have so many happy memories with him and of him.
From backyard cookouts to holiday gatherings to weekend sleepovers and day trips growing up, we spent a lot of quality time together, and I am dearly thankful for it.
For the past couple months, he was in and out of the hospital and rehab facilities for non-Covid health issues, but somewhere at one of these places he picked up the virus. And now he’s gone. But so too is his suffering.
I feel especially bad for my grandma who wasn’t able to see him and be with him throughout everything because visitors weren’t allowed. I feel so bad that she didn’t get to talk to him one more time to hold his hand one more time to give him a kiss one more time.
Please spare a thought for her. They would have been married 67 years next month. I just want to give her a hug and my mom a hug, but I can’t. I’m thousands of miles away, and traveling is not an option right now. It’s so hard.
I’m so fortunate to have such a loving family, and I’ve been so fortunate to have had all four of my grandparents still around this far into my adult life. So this is all so much harder for those reasons.
I don’t know if having a competent president who took this seriously and took extensive action months ago could have saved the life of my grandpa, but it could have saved the life of someone else’s grandpa, someone else’s dad, someone else’s husband, someone else’s friend.
I do know I can never forget and never forgive everyone who has somehow downplayed this virus or called it a hoax or just the flu and those who continue to do so.
Please please please take this seriously. Stay home unless you absolutely need to go somewhere for something absolutely essential. And if you do, wear a mask. You’re potentially not just saving the lives of you and your loved ones but also the lives of other people’s loved ones.
Though I didn’t get to say goodbye, I’m comforted knowing my grandpa will live on in all the happy memories we had with him: Visiting, chatting, playing games, dancing (he and my grandma were smoooooth dancers), going out for breakfast, going out for lunch and a chocolate malt.
A few years ago, I lived near a place I would go hiking high enough where I could see out to the ocean. Since then, on our weekly FaceTime chats, he would always ask me, “Did you see the ocean today?” I wish I could hear him say that one more time.
Though the beaches are closed and I couldn’t actually go to the ocean, I took a drive yesterday and got close enough so I could say, “I saw the ocean today, grandpa. And I will always think of you every time I see it.”
Thank you, grandpa, for all the good times and happy memories. You will be so dearly missed. Life will be different, but we’ll be okay because we have each other and the warmth of your memories with us. Here’s to you.
