she was sitting by his bedside. his breaths became more labored, and the tips of his fingers, the space underneath his eyes, his feet, they had all begun to turn blue. it was almost over. she began to read him a passage from the bible, something about how the lord is our shepherd. with that, he took a few last breaths, calm ones, and died.

i wasn't there, but that's what my mother told me, and that's how i imagine it happening. today was an odd day. i woke up, i went to school, i thought about it, i told some people, and i guess my mind has cleared a little bit. i guess i will just talk about yesterday after i found out.

after i found out i told ryan, and he said he would come up to ramsey to see me, and i really wanted him to but i had been too afraid to ask. at first when he got here, it wasn't really on my mind, we talked about it for a few minutes, but then there were other things to talk about. and then later on, we walked to finch park, as the sun began to set. and then we were sitting on a bench, and it was dark out, but there was something calming and soothing about it, as if everything that had happened today had been covered up. and i was sitting with ryan, and neither one of us was saying anything, and i was just looking out into the open field, and the huge sky, and it was stretching on forever, and as i looked a little more, lightning was throwing itself the sky, making the sky turn all purple and wierd, and even though it sounds nuts, i thought about that one scene in the lion king where that lion like, forms out of clouds to talk to simba, and that's sort of what i felt like at that moment. i felt like i was feeling something too big too handle, too great and ppowerful for earthly understanding. something undocumented and unrecorded, like he was out there, up there, and it was then that i made the distinction between life and death, that i was alive and he was not. and then i started going through all these memories that i had, like books in a library, all these times times i can see him, and it's true. you never know how much you actually miss someone until they're gone. all these times i went there, to his house, i realized how close to him i had really been. there were too many to count, and then i knew that all the memories i had were happy ones, i could not remember a single argument, a single bad thought, nothing. it was all good. and then, as i looked out into the sky, i wondered what ryan was thinking, hoping he wasn;t too bored. but i don't know, i was in such an odd state, i could not think of anything outside of my grandfather, i could not say anything pertinent to what was going on around me. i felt extremely weird, like i was going through the days but not really living them, like i was looking at everything from outside a bubble, kind of like when you look down in the water, and you can see te bottom, but you know you can never reach it, and all the waves of the water make everything look different. the air just had such a feeling to it, and then, i kept on thinking of the smiling man i had known, that everyone had loved, and that i would never, ever see him again. that part of it was still not clicking. he had always been there. he would never die. he was always strong and laughing and just always there, all the pictures i had of him, all these things i never thought i would remember in 10 million years, they all played back for me. and it was then that i started to cry, a little bit, and quietly, because i did not want him to know. i had been sitting on his lap and he coudln't see my face, but then i think he knew that i was crying and he asked me if i was ok. and then i moved so that i was crying into his shoulder, because i needed to, i needed to get it all out, and it felt so good to be there, being held, and letting it all out. and then his cell phone rang, and then i stopped. so we went back into town, and talked about things...and yea..it made me feel a lot better.

i got home at 10:30 and i was so tired so i just went to bed. i slept well for a little, but then i had these weird dreams. one was i was in this huge house, and everything was made of marble, even the walls and the cieling, and there was this room crowded with grand pianos, and i sat down to play one, but i couldn't think of anything depressing to play. then for an instant i saw my grandfather, and in his eyes i could tell he was upset, at someone or something, and there was red underneath them, and his mouth was slightly open as if he was at a loss for words. he was thin and the image was fleeting. then the dream changed over to a house, falling apart, the roof caving in, and you could see all the pipes and everything behind the wall. i didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

i had a dream last week that i was walking down the stairs of my house and into the family room, and the room had no furniture and was all white. there was a sliding glass door, and all this sunlight was streaming into it, and it was bouncing off the white walls. i was walking towards the door, and beyond it i could see all these green hills. it reminded me of heaven. and when i got to the door i tried to go past it but i bumped into the glass. it sounds kind of dumb, i guess...but it felt almost spiritual at the time.

i haven't seen the body yet. the body and my grandfather are not the same thing. the wake is friday, and the funeral is after that, so i won't go to school. sometimes i forget about it for hours at a time, and then i remember again. it always comes to me so..normally, the same as thinking oh, i have to bring my textbook home tonight. i think oh, my grandfather is dead. when i go to his house he will not be there. he will not call us anymore. i won't talk to him. i say these things, i run them over in my head, but i don't know, they don't quite make sense yet. i talk about him as if he is still alive. i keep thinking he is over in ridgefield park. that everything is normal. but right now he is in a coffin. they probably dressed him in his best. i saw a show once on how they prepare the dead. the suck all the blood out and them pump some chemical into your veins. and they refrigerate you. that's what they're doing to him. he's going to live in the ground. how is it that people end up in the ground? he is not breathing. he can't hear. he can't talk. he is lying, stiff and hard and cold, and dead, and is never going to come back. i remember when i looked at taryn, i got close to her, and i stared at her, and i waited for her to move. i kept waiting for the chest to rise and fall. the hand to flinch. and it never did, and that's when it really began to make sense. i know i will look at him, wait for him to shake his head, open his eyes, smile, get up out of the coffin, and walk around, and then everything will be ok and we will all go home.

But it isn't going to happen.