Why Sunflowers?

How do you deal with losing someone?

I wanted to write this blog post because its close to my heart and its somewhat the reason for this blog actually. I haven’t mentioned it until now, because I’ve been so panicked about writing it, but this is for and about my Grancha.

So here goes.

Four years ago in January, my Grancha passed away. (Grancha is a welsh term for Grandad) he was my rock in life. He listened to me, gave me advice and never made me feel misunderstood nor did he dismiss my feelings.

He suffered all his life with mental illness and he was the first person I told when I started to realise I might be suffering from it too. He let me have a safe space to talk and tried to guide me to getting help.

Unfortunately his health was declining and two years before he passed he told me his goodbyes.

I regret not paying more attention to the conversation and talking to him more about it. When he told me his goodbyes I remember exactly what I was doing, I was on a laptop, just going through my followers on Tumblr, and I was just lost for words.

How do you respond to someone telling you goodbye because they’re going to die?

Time went on, I was with my (now ex) girlfriend and we were on our way to go shopping when I got a call from my parents telling me my Grancha had had a turn for the worst and was in the ICU, I rushed home and packed a bag and we set of to the hospital which was nearly two and a half hours away, what I saw when we arrived, broke me.

(The following could be possibly triggering)

My Grancha was sitting in a hospital bed, looking like a bag of bones, honestly. He had lost so much weight he was probably half of what he was the last time I saw him, he was hooked up to numerous machines with tubes and wires everywhere. Even now its difficult to write this, because I relive the whole thing.

His face lit up upon seeing us, and he tried to sit up and greet us, but he was so weak. My dad sat next to him first and had a conversation, my Grancha was struggling to speak so much, it was like his tongue was foreign to his mouth.

I remember sitting with him and he told me how much he loves me and I tried to hold back tears, because this was the man throughout my life other than my own father that had given me everything, his love, his time and let me be apart of him life.

Things got worse from there, the next day he was in an even worse condition, and my memory blurs from there, I remember sitting on the floor at his bedside, all of us talking about random stuff and reminiscing, my aunt and uncle turned up and we all spent time as a family in this private room.

My Grancha was sometimes aware and sometimes not, until eventually he took his oxygen out of his nose and laid back while we were talking, and soon after I saw him take his last breath.

How do you mourn someone who is important to you? Someone who made your life that much better? How?

My Grancha was a hell of a man, I remember how prideful and independent he was, how funny he was too! His obsession with lighters with strippers on, his ability to make every situation lighter, how he could make you smile within seconds.

He struggled his whole life with his mental health and then his physical health, but he battled as hard as he could. He was one of the first people to have electrotherapy treatment too, which I always found interesting.

So the reason why my blogs icon is based around sunflowers is for him, because they are his favourite flower and I want to carry him with me always.

I want to make a difference for people who have struggled, just like he and I have, but most of all I want to make him proud. I don’t want to give up and end my story, I want to carry on and know he’s looking down on me smiling.

So Grancha, if you can see this. I’m going to do better, I am going to make you proud, and Im also going to make myself proud and I miss you.