One year.

While July 27^th marks the birthday of my twin nieces, it is also the day my Grampa died. The nieces that I have never met turn two this year, and the Grampa I’ve known my whole life has been gone for a year. It is an odd day for me, partly happy and partly sad, and the only common thing about it is that I yearn to see them.

I had been in New York doing my internship when I got the news that he was in the hospital, and my family had told me to stay put because he seemed to be on his way to recovery. However, almost a week later, when I asked my aunt again if I should go home that weekend, she said yes. I flew back on a Thursday and ended up staying home until the following Tuesday. He had been in the hospital for about 2 weeks, but we finally brought him home that Friday afternoon.

Early Sunday morning, around 5:30 to 6 am, my tearful Gramma woke me up. Being a student nurse at the time, the only one in the family who has medical knowledge, I was the first person Gramma called when she thought he had died. I rushed to his room, but I stopped on my track once I saw him. He looked different, and I knew he was gone. Nevertheless, I tried to find a pulse, begging God to let me feel one, but there was none. I looked at my Gramma and told her that, indeed, he was gone. I woke my uncles up, called my aunt, my brother, and my parents in Jakarta to let them know. That was a weekend I’d carry with me for the rest of my life. I don’t think I can forget having to confirm that my Grampa was dead and to break that news to the rest of my family.

A year flew by, and I thought of him often since then. I believe it’s safe to say that we all have missed him terribly. He was there through his grandchildren’s childhood, often visiting us bearing treats and taking us on a trip to the amusement parks, and sometimes, I just wished he could be here a little bit longer to see our life stories unfold now that almost all of us are grown ups. In the past 365 days, my brother J had gotten married and bought a house, my cousin C and I had graduated from universities—she a teacher and I a nurse, my cousin M had graduated from high school and is heading to college this fall, my cousin V had bought a house, my cousin K had given birth to E—his third great granddaughter, and my cousin S had gotten married. At every single of this event that we have celebrated, I wished he was here with us.

I know that he is in a better place and that he’s watching from heaven. However, I still can’t help but wish to have him here, there is a longing to see him walk down the aisles with Gramma at their grandkids’ weddings, to see him hold and play with his great grandkids, to see him be taken on a tour inside the houses that his grandkids own, to see him watch us graduate and be who we’re meant to be. More than anything, I wish Gramma still had him here with her.

The house has gotten quieter in the past year, and that has become our new normal. A new normal, in which we’d carry on with our lives, but, every now and then, we wish he was still here.