1.25.2007

Goodbye

Grandpa D and Me

This morning, around 11:45 AM EST, my grandfather, Robert Michael Defino, passed away. He had been sick with pneumonia for six months and it finally got the best of him. Last night he started to have heart trouble and had developed a fever. The doctors and nurses weren't sure if he'd make it through the night and my family had decided to take him off of his respirator if he did. They didn't want his suffering to continue any longer. Shortly after being taken off the machine he died.

I wish I could have been there to say goodbye one last and tell them him that I love him, but at least my mom was able to. Sunday we found out he didn't have much longer with him and my mom had made plans to go to Massachusetts today to be with him, but his health went much quicker than was expected and she's been there since Monday.

Monday morning I had gotten a call from my mom, sobbing, telling me that she was going to fly up as soon as she could. I initially thought my grandpa had died that day, because I couldn't understand much of what my mom was saying. I cried the entire way home and sat in a daze for a while until I talked to my dad that afternoon and he told me that he was still with us, but didn't have much longer. When I heard he was gone today, I took it in stride. It wasn't until I started to look for a picture to add to this post that it hit me, again. I never got a chance to talk to him one more time. I never got to say goodbye or how much he meant to me. He's going to miss out on the rest of the major events of my life. Most of all, I regret not having graduated college in time for him to see it. I've wasted a lot of time, enough that I could have finished a few years ago. It was very important to him, and being his oldest grandchild I should have at least allowed him to see one of them achieve that goal.

There's so many things I should be writing about him now instead of my regrets, but that's what I'm dwelling on right now. Maybe in a few days I'll write something that's more about him. I can't be sure though, because how can I sum up the life of a man in short posting on a blog? He meant so much to me that I may not be able to put it into words. All I can do now is to say that I miss him, I loved him very much, and I'm happy to know that he's not suffering any longer.

1 comment:

Hoppy McRibbit said...

I went through a similar situation with my grandmother a couple months ago so know what you are going through.

My mom was the only one there when she passed on and had to make the decision to revive her or not when she went into cardiac arrest. Sort of tough not being able to say all the things you should have said before they pass on.

But, I'm sure he'd want you to finish college when you are ready and focus on the positive experiences you had with him. Grandparents aren't too picky in regards to their oldest grandsons. :-)