This is the Death That Still Affects Me 40 Years Later
My first experience really dealing with loss
Describe your first experience dealing with death
I’m going to cheat a little bit with the above prompt. The first death I can remember experiencing was that of my maternal grandmother, but my memories of that event are pretty vague. I have one clear memory of standing in my grandparents’ living room (which was in the garage apartment behind my house) as my grandfather cried. MaMaw had died in the hospital and I think (although I’m not sure — maybe this memory isn’t as clear as I’d first thought) PaPaw had just gotten a phone call telling him she’d passed.
My grandmother’s death didn’t affect me nearly as much as my grandfather’s, which happened about 16 months later. I wouldn’t say that I really “dealt” with MaMaw’s death. I’m sure I felt sad and missed her, but I have no particular memories of my grief in her case.
When my PaPaw went, though, I lay on the couch crying, not moving for most of the day. Almost 40 years later, if I really take time to think back on that day, I can still feel the emptiness — at least in part — that I felt then as I realized my favorite person in the whole world was gone.
