I distinctly remember this time last year—the very last week in October.
I remember how excited I was this time last year because I was getting to go home for Halloween weekend for my oldest cousin’s wedding, which was on Halloween. My whole family was going to be together and the reception was a costume party. It was going to be the most amazing weekend of my fall semester. I thought so at least.
The day before Halloween and the wedding though, my grandfather passed away unexpectedly. Just hours before his passing, however, he called my mom and left a voicemail about trick-or-treating and visited my sister to drop off food from our ancestral state of West Virginia.
I didn’t get to speak to him that day, unfortunately, and I think that is something I have completely come to terms with.
My grandpa and I were close, just not in the same way as he was with everyone else. With everyone living in the same town, except for myself, I got guaranteed quality time with him.
My family is from West Virginia, that much is true. My grandparents were born, raised and married there before moving to Lorain, Ohio in the mid-1950s when the Steel Mill opened. His wife, my grandmother, died when I was just starting grade school.
My grandfather traveled to and from West Virginia often in the last decade of his life. When I made the decision to come to BGSU in spring 2012, he was the first one who offered me to move my things.
My first three move-ins and my first three move-outs, he was there helping. And when it was time for me to come home for breaks and vacations, he was the one who would pick me up from BG and bring me back from Lorain.
At his funeral, I was greeted by many of his friends with the phrase, “So you’re the one he was always driving to and from college? He was always excited to drive you.”
Until I heard people saying this to me, I had never really realized how proud he was of me to be going away to college.
I hope making him proud is something that I’m still doing.
I was told by a very close of friend of mine when he first passed away that the first year was always the hardest, and nothing could have been closer to the truth.
In the year he has been gone, my mother became a homeowner, my sister obtained the right to marry her girlfriend (now fiancée), I came down with a terrible case of cellulitis in the middle of summer and could have potentially lost my left hand.
Yet, somehow, through all the emotional, mental and physical changes, I am still here—a whole year and a whole new Halloween later.
The last time I wrote column, it was about people giving me the necessary time and space I needed to mourn the loss of my favorite old person in the world.
And now, I am using this column to thank all of the people who have helped me and supported me through one of the most trying time periods of my life.
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