When All Hell Broke Loose

From MemoryArchive

Who: Bridget Hartog
What: My Grandpa
When: 2002
Where: Midwest

I remember the last couple months of my grandpa so well. He had been in the hospital for about four months. He was in and out of surgery about once a week, if not twice a week the last month of his life. It was really hard to get the phone calls from my grandma saying that my grandpa was in surgery again. I remember crying myself to sleep at night just praying to God that he would make my grandpa well again or take his misery away, even if it meant death, even though he was the only grandpa I knew.

The last time I saw my grandpa alive was one week to the time and date before he died. He was in the hospital and so delirious, he had no idea what he was thinking or saying. Within a half-and- hour of being there my older sister and me were kicked out of his room and told to go home, even if we were in Minnesota and we lived in Wisconsin. He kept picking at his I-V and telling us to leave him alone; he was going to die in an hour anyways. At that time I thought he was so funny and not serious at all, but he really was. The following Sunday he went into surgery for the last time. We got that call shortly after we went to church. When we got back we were unable to get a hold of my grandma to see how he was doing, so we left the house for the afternoon. When we returned my mom called my grandma again and the most dreadful words came out of my mom’s mouth that I would never forget. “Oh my god, you’re kidding me.” The next thing you know I find out my only living grandpa to me is dead. I’m never going to see him again.

The next day we head up to Minnesota to tell him good-bye. The whole wake and the funeral are a blur to me. The one thing that I do remember was when we said good-bye to his body. I was holding on to my uncle’s hand, my dad and my brother were behind me. I looked at my uncle and he was crying, I looked behind me and my dad and brother were both crying as well. I was crying a little, but at that moment I cried ten times harder. To this day that was the first and last time I saw them cry. That was extremely hard for me. That weekend was the beginning of all hell breaking loose for me, until high school.