When my mom left the farm to check into her hotel, I was left alone with my grandma Shirley as I waited for aunt Stacey to get off work. Outside, it was still cold and wet, but feeling restless, I headed out there anyway.
The barn cats wasted no time rubbing up against my legs and using my jeans as their own personal scratching posts. I startled the cats away from me, because they were full of mange and grossly deformed due to being so inbred. Still, they trailed behind me at a safe distance as I headed towards the pasture, where the neighbor had his herd of holstein-angus cattle for the summer. I was still stunned by my grandpa's passing, and even though I knew he was gone and the air felt so much heavier, a part of me still expected to hear his radio turn on and faintly sing old country music to the rest of the farm from an open window. But when I returned to the house after patrolling most of the farmyard, I was met with a dark, empty kitchen.
While my grandma was busy with other things, I sat down at the main dining table and flipped through the old photo albums. I saw my grandpa as a young man riding his beloved horse, Judy, and driving old tractors and pickup trucks. I saw my grandma as a young woman caring for my newborn aunt Stacey, and then my newborn uncle Wade a few years later. I watched through the pictures as the family grew. I saw my uncle Wes as a newborn, shortly followed by my dad, and just as everything seemed to be stable, disaster struck.
There was a gap in time, and when it resumed, my grandpa was in a wheelchair looking quite a bit older than before. My aunt Stacey had grown up and was living in the city, hoping to start a family of her own, while my uncle Wade was now in charge of two farms.
It was weird flipping through those antique photo albums and seeing the family grow, from just my grandparents, to my aunt and uncles, to my dad, to my cousins, and then finally, in the second to last photo album, I came along. I was arguably the most beloved grandchild in the family. Not only did my grandparents, aunt, and uncles absolutely adore me, but my cousins fought over me. In some ways, they still do.
I was blissfully unaware of the time as I slowly flipped through each photo album, listening to the rain quietly pelt the granary's tin roof outside through open windows. As I closed the final photo album after staring at pictures that were only a few months old at most, I heard the kitchen screen door swing open and shut, and my aunt's familiar voice calling my name.
That night, my aunt brought me to my uncle Wes's house for an evening on the patio. After shooting a couple of .22's for fun, I settled down next to Wes's wife, Jess, and the four of us talked about grandpa and how his passing affected us. Everyone was inexplicably anxious leading up to his passing, and when he was nearing his final hour in the early morning hours of Memorial Day, my grandpa woke up unable to breathe, and struggled to wake up my grandma (who was sleeping next to him) to tell her what was wrong. My grandma woke up to my grandpa barely breathing, and ran to call the hospital and family using the landline phone in the main room. All of his kids rushed to the farmhouse to say their goodbyes before the EMTs could arrive. Only my dad couldn't be there in person, but he was able to Skype in thanks to my aunt Stacey.
For over an hour, the EMTs tried to stabilize my grandpa enough to airlift him to the hospital, while my aunt, uncles, and grandma anxiously stood in the bedroom door frame, hoping he'd pull through. Unfortunately, my grandpa was too far gone, and passed away the moment my grandma kissed him goodbye one last time. He had lived for 76 years, severely handicapped for 36 of those years, and he passed away just like he wanted to; on his farm he grew up to love surrounded by his family.
