This isn't fair at all, and nothing at all about it should be acceptable. You died yesterday and I hadn't even come to see you during your last week. I know for a fact if you were home you wouldn't have died. After all its your right to die comfortably among the walls you worked so hard all your life to secure. I know how lonely you must have been these past few years without your wife, but you had my mother and I as your friends. We were always willing to be your company and take care of you no matter what the circumstances. Despite your age you still had your wits about you and even your pride. It broke my heart to see your own son practically evict you from your home where you were safest and most comfortable. I know what killed you, the depression of being in that place and betrayed by whom you thought to be your most responsible child. You had a great deal of children and grand children, many of whom have grown up and moved on to live all over the world. I can't lie. It infuriates me to see one of those closest to home put you on the path of your death.
When my grandmother passed away many years ago, I didn't shed a tear and I was very accepting of it because she died peacefully in the home she built with the grandfather whom I'd never known. The home where she raised my mother, my aunts, and my uncles to become the people they are today. The home where all her grandchildren were always welcome and treated with love. I'm sure that's how your house was. I respected you and considered you to be the first grandfatherly figure I had ever known despite you being just a 'neighbor' at first and becoming a close friend of the family. I remember you managed to grow tomatoes and peppers in your backyard many years ago with your wife prior to her passing. I remember how often mom would go over just to check on you both and return with probably the freshest produce in New York. And then one thing after another came to pass, you lost your wife, several years later we moved away, and we still visited as often as possible. Whenever I shook your hand I could feel all those years of hard work, stress, and tension built up in your joints. That was no arthritis. Those were the hands of a man with decades of experience under his belt. Every time I saw you, even after the stroke, you seemed as lively as ever. All the stroke ever did was slow you down a little, but nothing changed about you at all. Every time you saw me you'd ask "How was Mommy?" even if you saw her earlier the same day. It would bother you anytime she sent me on an errand for you if she didn't have the time. But I never minded at all. It was never any trouble to go take care of something for you. I remember when you were still driving and got into an accident and threatened to fight someone at least fifty years younger than you for disrespecting you when he was at fault.
It sounds as if I'm in denial, but I was expecting you to probably outlive your grandchildren and even myself. It sounds spiteful, but I was even hoping for you to outlive the person whom placed you on your death bed. I feel partially guilty considering if I had acted sooner or taken more haste, or given your situation priority, you may have been returned to your home and even lived a few more years. Instead you were put in a nursing home, with your mind completely intact and withered away in discomfort and sadness.
I'm more angry than sad because this isn't how it was supposed to happen. In the back of my mind I saw you still being around to witness my marriage should I have one, or my children growing up to a decent age. Instead I'm forced to tell them their great grandparents died long before they were born, and they were just a few years short of meeting the best thing since them.
I understand death. I understand birth. I understand all that comes between it in the path called life. That doesn't mean I can accept certain things. That doesn't mean I can't be filled with anger, and hatred with just a tinge of sorrow. This really isn't fair, because as far as I'm concerned you were the closest thing I'd ever known to a grandfather. And I would never want my grandparents to suffer in their last few weeks like that.
