And Then They're Gone...

Last Tuesday my grandfather passed away, after a short (or long?) battle with lung cancer. I barely even remember him smoking, he stopped when I was 9 or 10 (a good 20 years ago), but I guess by then the damage was already done because it still caught up with him.

He was that person who was the class clown; always joking and playing, sometimes to the point where we'd say 'Hush Papa you play to much'. So when I went to see him in July when he first went to the hospital, laid up in a drug induced coma with tubes coming out of every opening, it was a hard sight to see. I'm thankful that I got to see him then, and talk to him quite a bit after that, for over the next few months he was in and out until they finally placed him on life support. My grandmother made the hard decision to discontinue it, feeling like we all did, that she was tired of seeing him suffer.

This is the closest death that I've ever had to deal with, and dealing with it is the only way I can describe it. Even though he's buried and surely gone now, it still doesnt feel right that he'll longer be around. Now someone else will have to smoke the turkey and the brisket for holidays and cookouts, or put up the hundreds of Christmas decorations that were so bright you could see them from Oklahoma to California. And as happy as he was and knowing that he would only want us to be happy, it feels almost wrong to smile or laugh again..to go on with life when he can no longer enjoy it anymore. Never knew pain like this.

So I submit to you, if you smoke, please quit. If not for you, then for the family who will one day feel this pain that is so unbearable. And if there is anyone in your family that you just never imagined would one day be gone, tell that person now that you love them...and then tell them everyday after that because you just never know.

Rest now, spread your wings and fly free

no more pain, suffering and no more grief

as you leave this life and those who love you behind

know that you will forever live, in our hearts and in our minds.

~*~

Sleep in peace Arthur Earl Franklin "Papa"...gone but never forgotten.