my grandfather died today. ironic that this is being filed in "living" but death is part of the cycle of life. he was the strongest male figure in my life because he was the male relative closest to me in terms of geography and the one i saw the most. i don't remember him ever yelling at me or punishing me but i knew him to be a dominating figure that you did not want to piss off. he was the closest thing to a father that those of us grandkids without fathers had. his health has not been so good of late but the fucker has lived through so much that i didn't think his life would end now. but i can see how the spirit of a person would rapidly decline after a major life change, such as what has happened within the past year.

i would love to post a kick ass photo of my grandfather in tribute but i have no such photo. i only have a shot i took last summer and he doesn't quite look like the grandfather i grew up with. i used to have a bunch of old photos of my grandparents in their prime that were scanned by relatives but i've lost all those photos over the years of changing computers and hard drive failures and faulty back-up procedures. several relatives are flying in tomorrow. the same gang i saw at the last family funeral. my family tends to die within a year of each other. this happened when i was little and so i am used to it. i am too used to it to be caring when someone says someone has died. i take it as a matter of fact. so probably people think me a cold hearted bitch that i'm not crying over my grandfather's death. others are crying enough that i don't have to join in... and i've also cried enough in my life over other things, including my father's death. i don't cry at the moment. i cry later. check back with me again in 10 years and maybe i'll be crying every night over my grandfather. i have some regrets about not visiting him much, especially since the whole point of me moving back to LA was to get to know my grandparents before they died. but there's always excuses. like how i felt uncomfortable and didn't know what to say. i didn't want to talk about the past and make it obvious that you're going to die and i want to get to know you before you die. i didn't want to make things more morbid then i think they have already turned... and how the past week i've been sick and i didn't want to give him my germs and make him weak and put him in a life-threatening position. well i don't have to worry about that kind of shit now. time to get to know the others. no more hesitations!