Too great a distance

There are some things that I don't put out into the world of social media.

That's true of all of us, I'm sure, but I think that I set my threshold pretty high.

There's something that has been on my mind constantly for nearly two months now that I have not written about here, on Facebook, or on Twitter.  I guess the reason for that is because I'm not too comfortable grieving in public.  I'm just not.

About six weeks ago, I found out that my grandfather has cancer.  Lung and brain.  The prognosis was about 2-4 months.

What I'm about to write after all of this is perhaps another reason I'm not entirely comfortable putting my grief out there: it starts to be incredibly selfish.  But maybe that's human nature?  We make most things about ourselves, right?

I was devastated, just like the rest of my family.  I still have all four of my grandparents.  I grew up in the same city where they lived (and where they still do) and saw them often.  I know this makes me very lucky, but it also makes the prospect of losing one of them just awful.

I've spent the last ten years moving further and further away from home.  First, it was just four hours away to college.  Then it was a plane ride or a 12-hour-drive to Colorado.  Then it was to Philadelphia, even further from Missouri.  And now, I've landed in Rome for two years.  Too far away.  Too many hours ahead in time.  A quarter of a world away.

There are a number of factors involved in getting back to see him and be with my family at this time, and I hate that there are things preventing me from rushing back to see him, how it hurts to say, one more time.  But that is how it is.  Thoughts that something would happen to someone I love while I lived so far away naturally crossed my mind, but I tried to banish those thoughts, to know that I'm not in control of any of it and I can't not live my life for those reasons.  I hate that this is now happening.  My worst nightmare.

I suppose that I'm writing about this today because it seems that things have gotten worse.  He had been living at home still, by himself, and now he has been moved to a home where others can take care of him.

And I'm still here.  I can't fly to the States now, and I fear that I won't see him again.  That I won't have gotten to tell him how important he is to me, how much I love him.  That I'm not there with my family.  That instead I'm here with my little family and my little life.  That if I do make it back in time, that he might not even know me, that the cancer has progressed too far.  It's hard to reconcile all of my emotions.

So instead, I'm sitting in my office in Rome, trying to find the will to pull myself together enough to be productive today.  To accomplish the tasks on my to-do list.  To not be paralyzed by guilt and regrets.  To think happily about the last time I saw him, in July when I went to Missouri for my last visit before moving to Rome.  He was happy and healthy.  The same Grandpa I've always known.  I know that he wants me to remember him that way.

Sometimes the distance is too great.  This is one of those days when I'm feeling it the most.