Anticipation....

I do not want to go to my grandfather's wake. I'm going to b/c I have to. I don't want him to be alone. Realistically I know he's not here, but I have to be there. I'm anticipating the fact that this is real. There is no turning back. A chapter in my life has ended. No more Nana and Grandpa who were always a few steps or a quick sneak through the backdoor away. Growing up I hated living in a two family flat next to my grandparents. I dreamed of living in a big house in the suburbs with my parents, unattached to my grandparents.

Isn't life funny that way? The things you dread as a kid become the things you cherish as an adult. The forced piano lessons, forced trips to Soulards Market with Nana and Grandpa b/c no one else would go, the forced conversation about the importance of saving money, the many sleepless nights listening to the his thumping his piano, playing his favorite song, over and over.

Now, I'd give anything to go back--just once-- to the wampth of my grandmother's smile, the stroke of her hands across my head, the eerily comforting smell of dax grease and freshly pressed hair, the taste of her cornbread dressing or the straight from the jar of her self-prepared preserved ---peach cobler, the smell of my grandfather's freshly stuffed pipe. . . .

(Deep breath)

I don't want to go.