This week has been a tough one, topped off with the passing of not only my Uncle but also my Grandmother during the same week.

Typically, I’m not a man of many words, nor do I typically express emotions related to these kind of events publicly too often – if at all.

Normally, I deal with these kind of things alone until I’m over it and ready to move forward. However, I feel it necessary to share my feelings and thoughts on this whole situation as I’m sure someone that follows me or listens to my music has gone through the same thing, or might be going through the same thing right now. So if my words can provide comfort, assurance or any help to someone else, then it’s a tick in the win column in my opinion.

My grandmother taught me a ton of things, not always directly but indirectly as well. There were things she taught me when it comes to baking, and there were life lessons I was taught by watching how she dealt with situations and I knew the proper way to handle that kind of stuff in the future.

Loss isn’t something I typically deal with a lot in my life. It’s relatively a foreign concept and for that I’ve been fairly lucky, however when it does occur – it just makes it that much more difficult to process.

My only consolidation right now is knowing that for the first time in a very long time, she truly enjoyed life during the last couple weeks before she had her accident. Almost a premonition of things to come perhaps in a cruel twist of irony. When I heard about the accident, my initial reaction was “She fell again? *sigh*”, almost annoyed since this same thing has happened countless times before with no ramifications or reasons…. that is until I heard it was more serious than previous falls.

Instantly, guilt swept over me and I felt that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. That’s been my entire week so far, dealing with ‘the guilt’. The guilt of feeling annoyed initially, the guilt of feeling like you didn’t do enough or visit enough, the guilt of feeling you could have done more or done something to prevent it.

When I initially was told of the accident, I was told she had two hours left to live, and I rushed to the hospital to see her laying in a bed on oxygen totally unresponsive. All of my cousins surrounding the bed including my mother. We’ve had a ‘family feud’ amongst everyone and this certainly wasn’t the way I envisioned bringing the entire family back together in the same room for the first time in over a decade.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

To be honest, I was numb for the first day – so much so I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me emotionally. Family and Friends all asked me how I was doing and I didn’t know how to respond. It wasn’t until spending almost 8-9 hours at the hospital while I tried to keep it together, the tears ultimately came and all of those bottled up emotions came out.

The last week has been a whirlwind of emotion. Sadness. Anger. Frustration. Sadness again. Back to anger. Everyone says that’s normal, but for me who likes to be in control of situations and my emotions, being in a situation completely out of your control is maddening – especially when it comes to a loved one passing away and the feelings that flood you when it happens.

All I can do at this point is what’s best for me, as selfish as that sounds, but everyone deals and copes in their own way. For me, it’s music and trying to think of the situation logically. This has always has been my method and always will be. So I’ll make sure to have a special music track in dedication to my grandmother on the new album that is worthy of her and everything she’s done and accomplished in life.

I didn’t say goodbye at the hospital, because one always holds on to that last bit of hope, but it’s at this point where we start to think of all the goodbyes that came before this one. It’s only then when we wish we had made more time for more hellos. It’s then when we realize all these moments we share with family and friends are simply time capsules locked in place. All these little memories that our brains use and collect as if knowing we need them again one day to compile our own book of memories in our mind.

We have no way to know what lies ahead for any of us. We can try and plan and control everything, but the simple reality is that most of life is truly unpredictable. Life is not a guarantee. I know that.

All I can say is that I’ll never forget her. I won’t forget her ability to always sacrifice yourself to make her family happy, and I certainly won’t forget how much I miss her already.

So.. with this new track I’m working on….

Here’s to you.