my grandmother, from my mother's side, passed away 3 weeks ago. she was ran over by a car. she was in perfect health, in fact, this had been a great year for her, she was happier and looked younger than she'd ever been in the last 10 years. there was a time when we feared for her life, but now we were expecting her to stay with us for another 20 years. we could only take confort that her death was quick and hopefully painless. we were all taken by surprise, and she was a great person, loved by all who knew her. it was a very hard loss. this sunday, as we were all commenting on how it was time to pick up the pieces of our shattered hearts and move on with our lives, we got news from my grandfather; there had been an accident. he is one of the coldest, least emotional people i know, he was very disturbed and wasn't able to tell us the full story by the phone, he just told us he was comming our way to talk with us. i spent the next half hour convincing my mother,who was screaming in panic, that my father wasn't dead. it was just too ridiculous, too terrible to be true. i was wrong.
a few years back, my father put together a small company, at first i was helping him with it, but i had little interest in his trade and went on to college to study fine arts, since then he had hired a couple of emplyees fresh out of highschool, and the company had moderate sucess for a few years and we were optimist for the future, but it was a high risk business, manufacturing very speciffic equipment out of highly expensive materials for a relativelly small proffit, and when one of his biggest clients faced with bankrupcy fled the country owing my father almost a hundred thousand euros, most of which he needed to pay his suppliers, it set us back severelly, and my father had been struggling for years to keep the company afloat. with two sons in college, and a third son almost there, my father was forced to look for better paying jobs abroad. he had been in angola for almost a year now, we had barelly seen him since. he was alone, living in poor conditions, working sometimes 20 hours a day. he wanted to come to my grandmother's funeral, but the trip was expensive and he'd lose work, besides, he was already comming for good this christmas, and the debts were almost payed...
last sunday morning, he was asked to take a look at something at a power central that was going to start functioning the next day, somebody forgot to turn something off. he was electrocuted with a stupid ammount of voltage and sent flying across the room. before he even touched anything, just by walking on the wrong part of the room. i like to think he was dead before he hit the floor. i'm happy my grandmother died two weeks before, she loved that man like her own son. we all loved him too
he was a stern but kind man. i'm having trouble constructing sentences so i'll just enumerate adjectives that would describe him: honest, righteous, smart, responsible, charismatic, strong, powerful, just, lovable, admirable, incredibly competent in every way possible, he didn't know everything, just everything anyone would need to know. he was the kind of people everyone asks for help with everything, and he always helped. that's the man my entire family depended on.
he was also the sole provider for the family. we're all hanging on the hope that he had a generous life insurance we didn't know about.
i haven't had the time to properly mourn my father. i am the eldest son, the "heir", i'm the head of the family now. i spent every day since then swallowing my tears, meeting with his accountant, his former employees, calling up neighbours to help me with paperwork, looking at papers, papers, papers... its paper with stuff printed on it, they all look the same... i never even filed my own tax...thingies... i need to call my father, i need his help
i spent 4 years in college, before dropping out without a degree or any useful skills, then spent a couple more years guiltilly leaching him off of just enough to sustain myself, being a housewife to my girlfriend, and failing at finding a job. my father had quite a few highly placed friends that i hope can help me with that out of pitty, though i'm not expecting anything above minimum wage.
i sworn to myself and to his memory, i'll see my brothers through college
Author
Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9777226 times)