I talked to my mom today.Â? The “Celebration of Life” went well and she sent me some scans of the pages, including a poem that my cousin Sari wrote and gave at the service.Â? The picture of my Opa on the cover is bringing me to tears because it’s a reminder that he is indeed gone.

I’m wishing that I could have gone to the service on Saturday but I kind of had to choose one or the other and Oregon will be when the whole family gets together, so I chose that.Â? It’s still just really breaking me up now because now I have reminders that my grandfather has passed and it’s not just something distant.

I knew the tears would come — I just didn’t know when.