A Tribute

Well, it happened. I knew when I made the choice to move out to Australia that it would be an issue some day, maybe sooner, maybe later, that I would lose family or friends. It's no different really from living just around the corner but you're more aware of it somehow, knowing that you couldn't make it home for the funeral, that you would be so very far away. Not that you could do anything if you were closer, it's not like being there would make you able to reach that person anyway. I just spoke to my Brother on the phone and he told me that my Grandpa died on Friday. He was sitting at his computer, playing solitaire. He loved his computer. They reckon it was probably a heart attack, but either way it doesn't seem that he suffered much. Either way, from everything I know, he lived a very full life and was content.
It's so weird, and I'm sorry if this is all a bit rambling but I'm trying to work out what I feel. See I only spoke to my Brother about half an hour ago. It's so weird. To say that I'm numb wouldn't be true but I do feel somewhat....distant. When I think about it though, I guess it's just the normal kind of feeling that we experience when we first hear that someone we loved has moved on. We have no real frame of reference, no way of conceiving of what has really happened, until at some random moment that voice kicks in, telling us, "you'll never see them again". As I said, I was aware when I moved out here that it would happen one day but I guess I didn't expect it to be so soon. I expected to see him at least one more time. But then I suppose you always do, no matter how near or far you are. You always hear people say, "I wish I could tell them just one more time that I love them, I wish I could say goodbye properly". I don't really feel like that as I try always to live a full life with no regrets. I try to take every available opportunity to show and tell people I love how much I love them, how much they mean to me, and funnily enough, I spoke to both my Grandpa and my Grandma last Monday. It was the first time they've called me out here, as I think they didn't realise how easy and cheap it is nowadays to call the other side of the world. But having said that, maybe I don't really try as hard as I could. So many times I said to myself, I really should call Grandma and Grandpa, or write. This serves that purpose, primarily. It's making me think. But still there's no regrets. I know how futile they are, how little they change. But we can use the energy that would go into regret to change our lives for the better. So I will, and this is the first step. I was writing this blog mainly for myself, to understand this, but then I came to the realisation that I could use it to say that last goodbye to my Grandpa. See as I said he loved his computer, and would spend as much time on it as he possibly could. And I figure the internet is not unlike the ether, it is a world of seemingly infinite possibilities, so wide reaching that I may as well send a message, a prayer out on its waves, as into the ether. And it seems so fitting.
Then, as I 've been writing this, I've realised that it can serve yet another purpose. I can use it to tell all of you, my beloved friends and family, that I love you, so that if any of us should depart this world tonight, we know. I want there to be no doubt, I love you. And the fact that I'm so far away doesn't diminish that whatsoever. I didn't move this far away because I don't love you enough, moving here was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make and I had to weigh up what was best for my future, for my dreams, according to the options open to me. That sounds selfish put like that but I'm also acutely aware that I don't serve anybody else by being less than I can be, even if it means that I'm right there.
So there it is, those three words that mean so much more than a million could ever describe. I LOVE YOU. You all mean the world to me, and a part of me wishes that we could all be together in the one beautiful place, but another tells it that this is the way things have to be, and we shall all grow stronger and enrich each other's lives for it.
And also, Grandpa, I wouldn't know where to begin. I could say how lucky I feel to have had a Grandpa like you, to have known a man like you. I could say how much you were loved by all who knew you, talk of what a comforting presence you were. I could talk of so many things, your intelligence, your knowledge, your skill with languages. I could say how I'm glad you no longer have to suffer the terrible pain of the arthritis that has plagued you, but it all means so little now. Go in peace. I love you xxxxx