Life Goes On...

It has been an interesting couple of weeks. I tried my first case. I watched the marriage of two dear friends fall apart in the same week I watched two other dear friends unite their lives at a beautiful wedding. And while my due date continued to draw closer and I felt my baby's presence more each day, I lost my beloved grandfather to Alzheimer's.

Love lost, love won, life beginning, life ending. It's ironic and yet poetic. This is this thing called life. It's unpredictable and beyond our control, and it moves on in spite of us, constant, incessant, always progressing.

My grandpa died on Friday, March 20. My trial ended last Tuesday. Wednesday saw me aboard a plane bound for home. The funeral was Thursday, and by 4:30 a.m. Friday morning I was on a plane back to California.

It's so hard to grieve in fast-forward mode. My father called me from my grandpa's bedside on that Friday morning. He held the phone to my grandpa's ear and in less than 30 seconds, I tried to tell my grandpa how much I loved him, how grateful I was that he was mine and how much I was going to miss him. He died just ten minutes later. At the funeral, they closed the casket less than five minutes after I arrived. I couldn't bring myself to go up in front of everyone to look at him, so I stayed in my seat and watched as his face disappeared for the last time. Then the graveside service ended so quickly, and we were all being ushered away to our cars. All I could manage was a hurried, whispered "goodbye."

I know that solitude can be an enemy during grief. However, while I was in Virginia I kept wishing for just a few more minutes... just a little time to be alone and to reconcile myself to the reality that my grandpa is gone.

I began this post with no purpose other than to fill the blogging world in on where I've been for the past three weeks. So you'll have to forgive me for not having much resolution to offer for my melancholy thoughts today. I'm somewhere in the middle of the grieving process, while life rushes madly on around me. Thank goodness for photographs, which keep still, along with the special memories they hold:




I love you, Grandpa. I'm so happy that you're in heaven and finally free of that wretched disease. I'll hug Grandma for you every time I see her.