Roller Coaster

I'd be lying if I said it hasn't been a rough week. I am on my first flight going from Montana to Iowa with my grandfather for his family reunion. I came to Montana to visit my family. Part of that included going through several of the boxes of memorabilia that my grandmother had kept with my grandfather. I knew there was a lot of photos but was unsure what else. I knew this was a big event for my grandfather because we talked about it almost every other day in the weeks leading up to my visit. Initially I chalked our repeated conversations up to his dementia and diabetes related memory problems. But as the visit got closer I began to realize there was a lot of anxiety around those boxes. Almost as soon as I got there he wanted to start going through the boxes. And that's when I realized, I was having my own fair share of anxiety about these boxes. But I wasn't ready. I managed to postpone him a day. The next day I went back after a restless nights sleep to start going through the boxes. I managed to get the two biggest ones open before he was ready to stop for lunch. After we got back, we started going through the boxes. It was reliving a life of good times and bad. Successes and failures. Regret and satisfaction. Some I knew of, some I learned. As the afternoon went on, I learned that this was the last thing Papa had to do before he was ready to die. He asked about his will. He gave me their wedding rings, which is the only thing I asked they leave me. His anxiety was, consciously or subconsciously, about deciding he was ready. We have had several strange conversations over the last few days, each tougher than the last as I realize what they mean. It's a crazy thing to watch someone die. To go through the circle of life together, to look at the photos where he is caring for you as a baby and then you come back to reality, and you are caring for him. And despite all the years and talks and scares, you realize he is ready but you may not be.