To The Grandpa I Miss in Heaven, I Think About You Everyday

Dear papa,

I’m not going to lie, these past months have been hard without you. It’s been hard not being able to run to you about my great news or when I need advice. It’s been a struggle not being able to show you my growth in painting and not being able to run to you with a new one to show you. There aren’t enough words in the English dictionary to explain how much I love and miss you, just know I do. The glue of our entire family is gone, and I don’t think that pain will ever go away.

I often find myself reminiscing on old times like playing lady antebellum so loud the cars next to us thought we were crazy. The times when we used to run and get fast food and you always stole my fries and I joked about your potassium levels (which now doesn’t make sense to me, but it had to of at the time). It all comes flooding back to me and then it starts to hit me, you’re really gone.

I don’t think that feeling will ever fade. It’s the most painful thing I’ll ever experience. Remembering everything we used to do together and all the jokes we made, and then realizing that god really took the most precious person to have ever been in my life. I sometimes hope you’re still in Indiana and that I just saw you yesterday, and then that feeling hits again. It’s as if god is purposely reminding me that you’re gone. As if he wants me to grieve all over again. I can never shake that feeling.

Suddenly everything changed when you left. There wasn’t as much laughter inside of our household. There wasn’t as many smiles or funny moments. It’s as if it all stopped when god decided to take you home. I could never hug you again or tell you I love you. I did it one last time and never really knew it was the last time and that hurts too. Never really knowing when that last time was going to be, and then it came and I prayed for just one more. I prayed to just see you once more, whether you be lying in that bed or standing in front of me. I’d take anything just to see your face one more and put my hand on yours.

I wish you could have texted me wishing me a happy birthday and that you’d be home later to celebrate. I wish you’d be sitting in those bleachers at my graduation with a smirk on your face just so I could see that your proud of me and what I accomplished. I wish you could have walked me down the aisle and saw a tear fall down my cheek while I smiled at yet another great man that entered my life that you actually approved of.

I wish you could be sitting in one of those chairs as I say my vows and promise to love my future husband as deeply as you loved me. I wish for so many things with you and I pray for them to happen, but there’s no use in praying because you’re holding hands with god while I’m praying you can hold mine.

I want you to know that I think about you everyday and I wish you could’ve stayed. I wish heaven had visiting hours because I’d be there from beginning to end. There is a hole in my heart that only you can fill. It will be empty forever with your presence.

I love you so much Grandpa. The next time I see you, we’ll have wings and be dancing on clouds.

Until I see you again,

Your granddaughter.