Cathedral of the Ghost

My grandpa died last week. Or maybe it was two weeks ago. Time bends in funny ways during grief. So does the mind.

My grandpa died last week and the forever dreamer in me is penning a story in my heart that I like better. One that proves that the power of love can overcome death and will allow this soft animal body a moment of rest. A moment of tender mercy for past mistakes and the loss of so much time.

Is that duality? Living with the knowledge of what you’ve done and could have done better. I hold both in me. The woman on fire who doesn’t know how to hold others well while she’s burning, and the being that loves from unfathomable depths.

This is her story:

Love makes you believe in crazy things. Things you might never say aloud for fear of… what? The truth? But this is my love letter to the world from the depths of a broken heart. I want more time, so I will write it into truth and reverse engineer this whole life.

I want this to be a lesson. I want to wake up from this and live in the story that I’ve told myself. That the loves of my life are all just actors on this stage. I want there to be a moral lesson that I can learn that didn’t include the loss. I want the world to wake up and realize that we are meant to hold more than just the perpetual threat of death—that together we can be dance and jubilee. And that right there is what I don’t want to say aloud. What I am tired of holding on and fighting for. It doesn’t have to be like this.

And yet here we are.

My grandpa died last week. The ambulance delivered him to the house two doors down. He was placed in a bed without proper sheets. We signed for him like a package we had to wrap ourselves. He laid in room for 12 hours while those around him tried to hold and comfort his love. The last thing my grandpa said to me was, “Oh, I’m okay… I’m just about to piss myself.” And that he did. Delivered to the wrong house. Received without a nurse. Signed away to his elderly wife who’s struggling to care for herself properly. Needing to piss. It doesn’t get much more human than that.

My grandpa died last week. I disappeared from them three years ago, and I don’t know how to hold that. How long can you be gone and still hope for return? How do you go about making amends for the moments you were the ghost?

I’m tired of breaking my own heart.

Instead, I will learn to build Cathedrals from the rubble.

My grandpa died last week. And somehow his death shook the life back into me.