When I woke up this morning my whole body was filled with that need to move again, that hummingbird mentality, always flitting around. Yet as I was at work I felt this strange feeling lay over me, something accustomed to dread, today would not be a good day, and surely it wasn’t my best. As I thought about the possible reason to be dreadful I realized more layers of what I was feeling: anxiety,sadness, pain. What was happening to me? Surely, I’m not depressed I love my life.
Still puzzling me was one layer of the unshakeable feeling that I couldn’t name. I sat and just felt for a while, just for a minute, and just like that I knew. Sorrow. Grief.
Yesterday was March 8th, 2012. On March 8th, 2007, a mere 5 years ago I lost my grandfather, Robert William Shafer Sr. My Pap was 66 years old, and had been fighting for a long time when he passed, but I’m tired of crying. I want to laugh again. I want to think of the old man whose whiskers tickled my face when he hugged me and smile.
My Pap was a great man. He was a mechanic when he was younger and helped my dad and uncle race cars for a while, so to me he always smelled like a grease monkey. He always wore the same thing: white t shirt, blue jeans and loafers, and he only wore a coat if coerced or threatened by Nana, or blackmailed by me. I distinctly remember saying one snowy winter night "If you don’t wear your coat I won’t wear mine.” and staring at him until he relented.
He was a tough man, protective and loyal. It’s from him that I gain those two essential parts of my personality, and it’s to him I give the credit. Yet he was always laughing, he could always make me smile.He teased and taunted, but when the going got rough he was right there to scoop you up in his arms and make you feel better.
He loved his family more than anything and he and my Nana made great work of spoiling us kids rotten. They bought us a trampoline and a pool so we could be outside being productive. They took us to the park, and the movies and bought us our favorite candy up the street at Mountaingate. They let us swim in the creek and catch crawdads, and anything else we wanted.
Nana, Pap, Brad and I always got to deliver newspapers together, since Ash and Deverule usually had school or were at my Aunt Jen’s place, narrowing the playing field down to two grandchildren. We would sit in the van and drink Cokes and help wrap papers for my grandma to throw out, Pap teaching us to slice the bands right so we didn’t hit ourselves (which I, of course, did) and during the holidays me blaring and belting the Chipmunks Christmas CD to annoy the hell out of Brad.
When he loved you, he loved you to his very core, no matter how difficult it was to show. My fondest memories were of days and nights we all spent together. Family reunions, carnivals, holidays, and Saturday nights at the bowling alley, me singing karaoke.
To say I miss him is an understatement…
As I type this blog I realize…
Today is March 9th, 2012 and on this day my Uncle Ricky would be 47, and I’m completely honest I didn’t really get the opportunity to know him all that well. We lived 3000 miles from each other, and saw and spoke to each other rarely, but I always knew he loved me. He would save my Christmas presents if I couldn't come out that year, once holding on to one for almost 2 years. It just stayed in his closet, waiting.
My fondest memory of him is one I often cherish, with family members that no longer speak, are no longer family.
We went clamming. The whole family: aunts, uncles, grandmas, cousins and siblings packed into trucks and drove to the beach. It’s been so long, but I can still remember what I imagined as we drove over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (I believe that was where we went). Holy crap I’m going to die. A giant Jaws sized shark is going to jump over this bridge and eat me. I’m too young to die.
The rest of the day just goes in fragments, trying my first bay oyster and loving it, clamming for the first time. I remember scuttling around in the water with Bradley and being scared half to death when a crab scuttled right back over my hand. I thought it was going to tear my fingers off. But most of all I remember waking up on the car ride home to him smiling in the rearview mirror at us kids, Shannon and I, baby Dalton strapped in his seat between us. I remember feeling so at peace with the warm summer wind, and my family surrounding me.
I may not have known a lot about him, but I know he had the trademark Caudill red hair, a mouth like a sailor even though he was a soldier, a protective instinct you couldn’t imagine, and I know he He loved his family, us, so much. I know he loved his children the most, more than anything.
I’m not telling you all this for pity, or to vent about the tragedy of losing someone we all loved. As I sit here, holding my favorite amethyst and smiling at the memories of these two people I love so much I have but one thing to say.
Love never dies. It never leaves us. It knows no measure of time or length of distance. It’s something that follows us, never letting up. It burrows into our hearts and our souls and pours out in affection and adoration, loyalty, honesty and trust. It comes to us from whatever afterlife we’re expecting and keeps us sane and whole.
I miss the two of them so much, and sometimes I wish I could go back in time and tell them not to do certain things, to keep them with us longer. But life doesn't work in reverse, it pushes us forward, and our sadness works into a purpose, to live life the way they would've liked us to. To live honorably, with integrity and dignity and to stand tall and make our family names shine. To never give up or shut up and to be the best we can be, even if it's hard to do. I live my life to make the people who've passed before me, who I love proud of me.
When I was little we always went to the bowling alley to just be together and, for me, to sing. One song was always a crowd pleaser, and has always been silently dedicated to my family.
Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you
That is how I know you go on
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never let go till we're gone
Love was when I loved you
One true time I hold to
In my life we'll always go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
You're here, there's nothing I fear
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Life is short, but love lasts a lifetime and beyond.
I miss you two. -Kink
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