For almost 26 years I didn’t regret one thing in my life. I had made some stupid choices along the way but they all made me who I am today, and I’m happy with that. But the day before my 26th birthday, while on my Honeymoon and in my second destination, I was told via Skype that my only Grandfather wasn’t just sick, he was now terminal. He had been admitted to hospital and was “comfortable”. My mother wasn’t going to tell me because we had discussed before I left that if his health worsened that there was nothing I could do and the best thing would be for me to find out when I returned. Instead I changed my mind. If I hadn’t have changed my mind I wouldn’t have been able to say goodbye to my Grandfather through Skype on my iPad. He was wearing his new blue pajamas that my mother had bought him and he was laying in a hospital bed. His eyes were closed but he said “Hi, how are you?”. I told him all about Cambodia and Abu Dhabi, and what our plans were in Croatia. He kept moving awkwardly, he looked so brave. All I could think about was how he knew there was nothing that could be done, and I worried about how scared he must have been. I said “I love you” and he said it too. I said “goodbye” and hung up because I didn’t want him to see me burst into tears. I spent the day at Ferrari World trying to get our Travel Insurance company to send us home and organise for the refunds. Instead we were told they would not cover my husband because it was ‘my’ grandfather and not his. He would have to pay the cancellation fees and we would have to come up with the very expensive, short notice flight home to Brisbane. After asking around we just couldn’t come up with the money that would, as I later would find out, have allowed me to be there for his last few hours.

We flew to Croatia and the 9 hours difference made it hard to keep up. My Uncle finally got through to me on Tuesday the 1st of July and my Grandmother told me that he had passed a few hours earlier. I had been at KRKA National Park, enjoying the breathtaking beauty of the lakes. I was swimming next to a waterfall while my grandfather died.

It’s now Saturday and I still haven’t cried properly. I was asked today to give four lines, a memory, for the funeral. Something that signified the relationship I had with him. Instead I sit here in anger. The same anger I have felt for four days. I want to be at the funeral and say that I now have my first regret. I had 26 years to spend time with and get to know my grandfather and I wasted it. I can only seem to find trivial information in my mind about a man I respected so greatly. I have no tangible memories or stories, it’s as if I’d never met him.

Then, once there is a break in the anger, I feel guilty that instead of being by his side I was/am on a vacation, that instead of holding his hand I was whining about how cold it was while swimming next to a massive waterfall. I feel guilty that while he lay in a bed for the last time I was bitching to my husband about how uncomfortable these hostel mattresses are. Guilt of not being with my mother and brother when they are alone.

I’m distracting myself from enjoying my trip by noticing every little bad thing there is because if I enjoy myself the guilt is unbearable. So instead I go back to the anger.

I am so angry. I am angry that I am here and not there. That I am enjoying myself when he is dying. That I’m not enjoying myself because I am alive and doing the things that he will never get to do and wanted me to be doing instead of seeing him like that. I am frustrated that there are others in this world that are so evil and undeserving of life and yet my wonderful Grandfather is gone. I am angry that I don’t believe in Heaven and Hell. That I believe that when you die you cease to exist. I am angry that for the first time in my life I want the denial of believing in a God just so I can have the smallest hope of making up for the time that I wasted. To have the hope of seeing him again. I’m angry that I will never be able to have that hope. That to me, he is gone.

I hope one day soon the anger will be replaced by sadness. That I will cry as hard as I did when I found out that he was soon to pass. Then after the sadness I might remember some more profound memories of the man that was the male influence that taught me what qualities a good man should have and what characteristics they shouldn’t. That I will be able to pretend that he is watching me somehow and I can thank him for being the reason I married such a good man, like him.

He was truly a man to be remembered.

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I wrote this as non-fiction which is not easy for me, I tend to weave my truth into fiction instead of raw honesty.