No Closure

Alex woke up to find her mom crying. She had never seen her cry before, and she wondered what had made her so sad. Alex was seven-years-old, and she knew that her Grampy was sick and in the hospital but was too young to really understand what was going on.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

It took her mom a couple seconds before she could talk. “Grampy passed away last night.”

Alex did know enough to know that “passed away” meant that he had died. She had witnessed her Grampy using a device that had two bottle shaped containers connected with tubes. Also connected was a tube with a white plastic tip that was shaped like a whistle. She had watched as he blew into the tip and a blue liquid moved from one bottle to another.

She also knew that he had one of his lungs removed because he had “lung cancer” and the bottle was supposed to strengthen the remaining lung so that he could breathe better. What she had never heard from anyone was that the cancer would eventually result in his death.

Alex thought about this for a minute of two before she asked her mom how Grampy had caught the cancer.

Her mom explained that he had gotten it from bad things in the air. She emphasized this by sweeping her hand across in front of her like she was trying to catch a fly.

Alex began to cry to as it dawned on her that she’d never see her Grampy again. She’d never see his smile nor hear his laughter.

Her mom held Alex as they both cried themselves out.

“Hailey is going to be watching you and your cousins while your father and I are at Nana’s helping to plan for Grampy’s funeral.”

Alex’s dad had been at the hospital when Grampy had passed away. Alex would learn that her Grampy died peacefully in his sleep. Her father told her that Grampy simply took a breath, seemed like he was trying to take another one, but it never happened.

She didn’t see much of her parents over the next couple days. During that time, Alex and her two cousins asked Hailey many questions that she answered as best as she could. “It’s the way life is,” she told them one day. “Unfortunately, people don’t live forever.”

The day of the funeral Alex asked her parents if she could go with them. They told her that she couldn’t, but they would be home before Alex got home from school.

Alex didn’t want to go to school that day. As her understanding of what was happening had grown so had her sadness. Seeing how sad her parents were she didn’t push the issue. If she couldn’t go to the funeral she wanted to stay home with Hailey watching her, but Hailey was busy with her own college classes that day.

When Alex returned home that evening her parents took her to her what was now just her Nana’s house. Grampy’s immediate family were having dinner that night.

Keeping mostly out of the adult’s way, Alex and her cousins played in the backyard while dinner was being prepared.

From her cousins she learned that she was the only one of them that didn’t get to go to the funeral and say goodbye. To say that this upset her would be an understatement. She possibly could see why her older cousin had been allowed to go, but if Alex was too young to be there, why did her younger cousin get to.

Later that night she asked her parents to explain this to her. Her mom stated that her younger cousins attendance had been up to her parents. Alex’s parents had made their own decision, so Alex went to school instead.

At that moment Alex hated her parents. Although, as she grew up the hatred faded to disappointment Alex never found that she couldn’t forgive them. In her mind her parents had taken away closure that she never would feel.