Safely home.

This post is a lot of sad, but I think there's a little bit of happy, too.

My grandfather died one month ago this Friday.

I've lost three other family members who I was very close with, more so than I ever was with my grandfather, but for some reason his passing is the one that has hurt the most.

For over thirty years, he worked as a firefighter.

I can count on one hand the number of times I remember him telling me he loved me. He didn't use that word too often - not because he didn't love, but just because that's the type of person he was. He was so tough and reserved, but when you've seen the things he'd seen, could you blame him? He built up a wall. On the rare moments he would let it down, his smile and his laugh were beautiful.

  

He got together with another woman about two years after my grandmother passed away and they had two children. I have a 5 year old aunt and a 3 year old uncle. Silly, I know.

He died of lung cancer. He was a smoker - like, two packs a day.

When he got sick, he changed so much. He began to tell people he loved them all the time. I was so happy that my favorite word became his favorite word - love.

Then he got really sick. It all happened so fast. All his hair turned grey. He lost over 50 pounds in about 2 months. He started having heart problems. And blood clots in his brain. And memory loss. When my mother visited him in Guatemala for two weeks in October, he didn't recognize who she was until the day she left to head back home.

When his lung cancer was detected in the Fall of 2011, the doctors had given him until January of the following year to live. But after everything else that he had been diagnosed with since then, they began to doubt he would make it that far.

On January 10th, 2012, my little brother and I were making card towers in the dinning room. He kept on cheating and "accidentally" knocking my cards down, because I was beating him and he is the sorriest of losers this world has ever seen. It was around 8 P.M. when my mom got the phone call. All we heard was a scream in the hallway and we knew what the call was about. My brothers and I sat with her and held her until my dad got home. My father has such a way with words - he has always been good at that, and he was able to calm her down. Just a couple of minutes had passed since the first call when the other call came in.

My grandfather had been pronounced dead for fifteen minutes.

Then he started breathing again.

Things didn't look too good, though. His brain had gone without oxygen for far too long. The monitors barely registered a heart beat, but as long as that beat was there, there was hope.

He didn't make it through the night. He lived for about 4 hours longer after that.

It doesn't make what happened any less of a miracle.

The day of his burial, we were able to get a live feed to Guatemala and see parts of the service. It was one of the saddest things I have ever witnessed, and I wasn't even there in person. It was also beautiful, if that makes any sense. Part of it took place at the fire station where he worked all those years. A place that saw him grow up and grow old. A place that holds a lot of nostalgia - but also a place that became a second home for many. A safe place of sorts. All of the fire men lined up on the sides of the casket in their elegant uniforms - the ones they would only use for special ceremonies or official pictures. They were honoring one of their best men - one of their best friends. At the end when they did their roll call and they called my grandfather's name, they all yelled "PRESENTE!" for him.

My grandfather was a great man.

I think I'd like to name one of my kids after him someday.