The first grandparent to depart from my life just so happened to be the grandparent I was the most close to.

It was last October. The first day of fall break we find out that my grandpa had a terminal illness. An amazing way to start off five days of no school, right? A month goes by and he was determined that he was going to get better. He had been on Hospice care for approximately three weeks by then. Each day, he would fade away a bit more, and we knew, no matter how much we didn't want to believe it, he would not have the luxury of working on the construction projects he had grown to love ever again.

I was working on this project for one of my classes. It was a family history project and we had to interview one person, preferably a grandparent. I remembered my teacher saying that she had done a project similar to this over her grandma. When her grandma had passed away a few years later she was so thankful that she had that project to hold on to within her memories. I kept pushing off asking him my desired questions because I knew that his memory, along with his personality, seemed to fade away more each day. One night, when I knew I had to stop procrastinating, I sat down with him and asked him. We shared forty-five solid minutes of him answering questions with the most amazing ability we had heard out of him in the longest of time. After those forty-five minutes had passed he just seemed to slip back into the mode he had been in for the past few weeks.

Six days later, December 4th, my grandpa passed away. The night before, I had cried myself to sleep because I felt so incredibly bad for the suffering that I could hear him go through. I just wanted him to be alright. I took that week off of school and with other members of my extended family constantly surrounding us, it made the pain so much easier.

I returned to school the next week, and turned in the report I had finished while I was absent. I presented it the next day. One of the best things happened during that presentation. I was telling about my grandpa's days when he did a lot of stuff involving trains. I stuttered right in the middle of it, paused, and smiled. When my grandpa had been fading out that night, I remember him stuttering a word, "Engermen." I am not sure if that's what he was called or if he confused the words Firemen and Engineer, but I said it. In a strange way, it made my day.

It has been a little over a year since he has passed on. I do miss his humor with all of my heart. I miss him with all of my heart. I am not sure if you, the reader, believe in heaven, but I do. I do believe that he is up there, looking down on me. I know I will see him again one day, and for now, we seem to just be departed.

Learn more about this author, Laura Fellows.
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