Tragedy is easy to write about. Everyone can connect to it and writers can always describe it perfectly. I am only 15 years old. I have had a few rough times, but I am able to say that I have never had a true tumultuous time. There is just one event that I would like to share.
In the spring of 2013, my grandfather, Hugh McFadden, passed away. He had been diagnosed with cancer the year before, so his passing wasn’t unexpected. Now, I could talk about how hard he fought to stay alive. I could talk about my summers with him and my grandmother. I could talk about how he overcame his alcoholism. I could even talk about how much he impacted the lives of my aunts and my mother. But none of these things could truly describe how much of a good man my grandfather was. He strove to be a good man, and through his efforts, he became one of the greatest men I knew.
My grandmother had two funerals, one in Pennsylvania for his family and one in Florida for his friends. One made me want to vomit and the other was perfect for him. The funeral held in Pennsylvania was in a huge, stone church. The priest was fully robed and spoke of God and heaven. He tried to comfort my grandmother by saying clichés like “He is in a better place,” And “The Lord called him and the Lord knows best.” These corny sayings had the opposite effect on me. I guess my natural teenage rebellion made me think so cynically of his words. I was left feeling like it had shamed my grandfather, rather than honor his memory. However, the service in Florida was ideal for my grandfather. It was held in a small pavilion in a veteran’s cemetery. It was intimate and the priest looked like a biker. An honor guard also stood by and shot their rifles into the air as Taps was played. It was only 30 minutes long, but it put my uneasiness from the first funeral to rest.
If you were to talk to my family about me during this time, they would say that I did not care about my grandfather, that I’m an unfeeling, uncaring machine. However, those people did not truly know my grandfather. He was someone who could have a conversation with you and it felt like you two were the only people in the whole world who got the joke. If you acted like a child, he treated you like a child. I don’t cry because I missed out on knowing him as a person or being in his life, both are untrue. I miss him because of the person that he was and the love that he showed me. I cry because I miss him. And I don’t have to do that at one specific time at a certain place.