Personal Experience of Paying Last Respects to My Grandfather

On that fairly warm, October day when we normally celebrated my father’s birthday we drove over the cracks of the torn up road. The car turned into the driveway of the old white house, where a man in all black stood. My dad rolled down the window to speak with the man who told my dad to pull the car into the line with our other family members. Dad laid his hand gently on the gear and pushed it down into park. My family all crawled slowly out of the white van doors. As my heels fiecely clicked the concrete ground, I felt the cool breeze that sent chills up my back, and the warm sun shining down on my face. My cheeks became warm and my eyes moist as we proceeded towards the front of the home.

I approached the frosted glass door that a black-haired, pale-faced man opened for my family from the inside. Within my first step inside the door, the musky aroma ran up my nose. The first glimpse was of my extended family, whose tears fell onto the rose pink carpets, forced me to lose my composure. I began blubbering as my mom tugged me to her and pulled me in close. Her arms surrounded and squeezed my body like a belt. The top of my head became wet as she cried with me. We walked together into the coat room to hang our black coats, and grab an algid glass of water to calm us down. The brothers of my father came to the room and spoke with my mother. Not able to bare seeing them cry I left to go find my cousin.

I stepped down to where the carpet changed from pink to navy blue, with my eyes only focused on the dark wood casket centered in the front of the room. A cold, glazed body laid inside it. A 57 year old man with black luscious hair seemed to appear in a deep sleep that no one could awake him from, my father’s father. A piece of me fanished and my heart felt hollow . The sobs and screams came out of me from nowhere. My knees grew weak and I needed to rest. I sat on the floral 1950’s couch behind me. A women who became a blur brought me a box of tissues and another glass of water. So choked up the words “thank you” were never able to leave my mouth.

The ceremony began, I grabbed a seat and stared at the feet of my mother. I felt embarrassment from crying so much, but I could not stop it. The tears never ended. The old man got up in front of the microphone and started “We gather here on this October day...” When he finished he introduced my father to come up from and say a few words. My father walked up with tears flowing from the tear ducts of his eyes. So choked up it took him a minute or two to get the words to scratch out of his mouth. In between each word he paused for a long second. Staring at the man in front of me trying to speak of his own dead father made me even more saddened. I could hear myself crying and knew all of the ears in the room could hear me and all the eyes when I sobbed were on me. My imagination played me. No one actually stared at me.

After my dad sat down the rows of people cleared as they got up to give respect for my grandpa. One by one people moved their feet slowly, almost as if their feet stuck to ground. I was next, my eyes and heart could not even handle looking at him. I just moved forward. The guiltiness buried into my stomach. My family understood why I never looked at him, but it felt as if they thought I made a bad choice. There went my brain playing tricks on me again though, my parents did not mind.

After friends and family paid respects the people in black moved way to their cars. The line of cars went on forever it seemed when I walked over to our van. The fluorescent orange flags on each car blew in the wind as I hopped in the car. In the car we sat in silence. Not a sound came out of our mouths. No one could even talk, since we were so choked up anyways. Our car moved forward, and back out onto the tar road. I turned to see how many people could possibly be attending the burial. It seemed as if 80 cars lined up behind us with their lights flashing onto the car ahead of each other. His grave laid at the back of the grave yard. I watched the hearse go up the steep road which led us to the back. We parked the car on the side of the road by the grass. People gathered around the empty hole in the ground.