#because my parents were afraid I wouldn't be able to handle to concept of death at age 5 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

autumngracy · 5 months ago

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Unrelated, but I misread this as "got a package from my dead grandpa today" and was reminded of a few years ago when I (29ish at the time) found a letter written to me by my paternal grandfather, who had died when I was 5, and whom I saw only a few times, leaving me with a single foggy memory of sitting on his lap.

He had written it to child me, and my parents never gave it to me, possibly because I was around 3 and too young to read at the time, and they meant to give it to me later and forgot.

In the letter, (it was actually a cute little greeting card) he wrote how much he enjoyed having a granddaughter and how happy he was to spend time with me.

I opened the sealed envelope and read that letter 25 years after he'd died. I didn't get to attend his funeral. I can't remember his face.

But I know that he loved me.

HES LEARNING

#He wrote my brother who was 7 at the time (and 9 when our grandfather died) a similar letter as well #Which had also not been given to him #So I had the utterly surreal experience of delivering a letter to my brother and being like hey #I know he's been dead for 25 years but grandpa wrote you a letter #completely buckwild situation #Anyway I never got to go to his (or his wife's) funerals #because my parents were afraid I wouldn't be able to handle to concept of death at age 5 #let alone both my paternal grandparents dying within 3 months of each other #and so didn't tell me they were dead until I asked how they were doing #several months later.#We were out at Pizza Hut having dinner and I was like hm I haven't heard anything about grandma and grandpa in while; I wonder how they are #Can you imagine how I felt when they were like “Oh. Um. Yeah. They're dead”

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