Moment 2: “Here Comes Goodbye” (July 6-7, 2010)
It was one of the worst days of my college career, but in the end, it was one of the most memorable.
My mom’s cousin Chris thought I was thinking of something at one point in the night. “What are you thinking right now?” he asked.
I said, “Nothing really, why?”
He said, “You’ve got that look on your face like you’re thinking of something.”
I was thinking. ‘I tell stories, it’s what I do. How the hell do I tell the worst story I’ve ever told in my life? How do I put this moment into words?’ I think in the past 11 months I’ve found out that you don’t.
“I had nothing come to mind. No words, no phrases, absolutely nothing could describe what I’m feeling at this moment,” I wrote last summer. “And for someone who considered themselves pretty good with words, this moment is incredible.” (For the blog post I wrote last summer, visit http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-memory.html)
On Tuesday, July 6th I sat in the UC video office, prepping for another fun summer day at work. I had planned on leaving a little early to go golfing with my friends. Plans changed in a heartbeat.
For weeks leading up to that day, my grandfather, who had turned 87 in April, was in failing health. It was only a matter of time until I received the phone call. My mom called and said something along the lines of, “You can either stay at work, or get down here…” as her voice trailed off. “It won’t be long.”
‘Well, I’m sure as hell not going to miss saying goodbye to my grandpa,’ I thought. I raced, albeit at a safe pace, to my car and down to the nursing home where my grandfather was stationed.
The whole time the only song I could hear in my head was Rascal Flatts’s “Here Comes Goodbye.” But it was another song that gave myself, as well as my brother, some solace in the days following my grandfather’s passing.
My brother (left) and my grandpa, from two years ago when my brother graduated from Elder High School
Diamond Rio’s “God Only Cries.”
“It still makes me sad, when I think of my Grand-dad, I miss him each and every day. But I know the time will come, when my own grandson, wonders why I went away. Maybe we're not meant to understand, til we meet up in the Promised Land.”
The refrain: “God only cries for the living, 'cause it's the living that are left to carry on. And all the angels up in Heaven, they're not grieving because they're gone. There's a smile on their faces, 'cause they're in a better place than, oh, they've ever known. God only cries for the living, 'cause it's the living that are so far from home.”
There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t give my grandpa some thought. He won’t be in Fifth-Third Arena on Saturday, a place that I saw my very first UC basketball game at when I was about 8 years old. Who was with me on that day? He was.
I also spent most of Saturday afternoon in the dugout at Great American Ballpark working freelance for FOX’s national broadcast of the Reds and Dodgers game. In the middle of the first inning the only thing that crossed my mind was, ‘Damn, I want to tell someone all the stories of all the awesome things I’ve gotten to do today…except the only person that would have a blast listening to me would be my grandpa.’
This photo, sent to Twitter by FOX19's Joe Danneman, was taken on Saturday when I was freelancing for FOX's national broadcast of the Reds/Dodgers game
Excuse me for wearing sunglasses on Saturday afternoon to hide the tears for those brief moments.
Sometimes you find a silver lining in something so bad. Hours before my grandfather’s funeral we were gathered inside Our Lady of Victory’s church and one of my mom’s cousins told me, “I read your stories and they made me cry.”
I responded, “Well, that wasn’t what I planned to do!”
One of my biggest dreams is to put together a hair-raising, tear-inducing story, like the ones you’ll occasionally find on ESPN’s SportsCenter. I think I might have already done that.
On Saturday afternoon, I’ll look up at the crowd gathered for the class of 2011’s commencement, and there will be one face missing…physically at least.
But I know that somewhere, that one face will be shining down on me, beaming with a smile. And in one happy moment, I’ll say, “We did it grandpa, we did it…”
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And if you’ve missed any of the previous stories, feel free to peruse them at your leisure before tomorrow’s moment, the biggest moment in the past four years:
No. 10- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/10-days-until-graduation.html
No. 9- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/nine-days-until-graduation.html
No. 8- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/eight-days-until-graduation.html
No. 7- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/one-week-until-graduation.html
No. 6- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/six-days-until-graduation.html
No. 5- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/five-days-until-graduation.html
No. 4- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/four-days-until-graduation.html
No. 3- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/three-days-until-graduation.html
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