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It all started with an email I received this morning at around 2:50am. I was getting in my car, still in the garage, and my phone lit up. Nothing unusual about that, really. Dang thing's always talking or blinking, it seems, with news updates, random texts from my East Coast friends, emails from my brother in India and the like. Usually, those alerts about email are late. So, really - what else was new?
This email was different. It was from my Dad, no subject. This didn't bode well.
"I just wanted to let you know that Grandpa died this evening."
Pause.
"He's now in a much better place with my mom and others who have gone on before."
I'm stuck, now, at this point. Suspended between the Jenn who knows she needs to drive into work and the Jennifer (my real name, and the name my family back in Seattle calls me) who just wanted to go back home for a bit.
I had already been home to Seattle to spend a weekend with my family, so I felt like I had said my goodbye to Grandpa Burgess - on a good note. A better than expected note, even. But, still, there's nothing like that family tie that forces you to remember priorties and grounds you in who you are.
I guess now I can say I don't have any more grandparents. They've gone to a much better place with those who have gone before.
Now, it's just my immediate family... sobering thought... as the ties grow stronger.
I guess I felt compelled to blog about this, because as a news person, we see and read and hear about death all day long. Still, I hope you trust me by now, viewer, that I understand each one of those stories is a life. We may not know the entire story behind that life. But I do know it's never to be taken lightly.
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