last night, after an hour of laying in bed without sleeping, found myself right back here. writing an email, rewriting it, then just typing.

and i typed i miss my grandfather.

and began crying. sobbing, to be honest.

im not ashamed or embarrassed to say as much. he was a good man and i miss the hell out of him. monday, if i hadnt been working and he had been alive, we would have been at his house eating ribs he had cooked, or chicken he had cooked, on a grill he made himself in the corner of the yard, next to my grandma's garden.

i would have sat on the patio watching as the adults smoked and still not feel like i was an adult.

there are great grandparents and grandparents and great aunts and uncles. and i am still, at the least, a grandchild.

missing a grandpa.

im going to miss him for a long time. i will cry for him, for a long time.

sob, to be honest.

i went to bed, cried myself out there. on my back, looking at the ceiling, doing the only thing i could think of to distract myself.

telling stories. stringing images in a line and breaking them and feeling the swelling in my head go down and the knot in my center loosen and letting this peace in me come in and something close to, i guess, exhaustion, put me out.