Most people spent their holiday in one of three ways...

-As part of a couple, doing romantic, lovey-dovey, couple-y things.
-Single, celebrating with friends (or on their own) and being perfectly content.
-Single, moping, and despising all that crass commercialism.

I, however, spent it at the bedside of my dying grandfather. He had cancer for about a year and half, and at one point even seemed to be improving, but the past two weeks were essentially it... We were just sort of waiting for the inevitable to happen.

I spent all day with my grandmother, watching her crumble, and listening to the awful, gasping moans that filled the living room every time he took a breath.

The next morning, at 11:35, he was gone. Hospice was there, and we all waited for the funeral home to come pick him up. Lying there on that little bed, he looked like nothing so much as a mummy in the back room of a museum... all drawn and yellowed, wrapped in sheets, and I didn't feel anything. I couldn't associate the person being zipped up into a dark blue canvas bag with the man who used to heft me over his shoulder, who climbed mountains and went on safari and bitched because he broke his leg on some adventure and couldn't go out again for so long.

His memorial service (he decided to be cremated, and even picked out his own bloody urn) is Saturday morning- I don't think Miramar's portrait is going to be added anytime soon, so my apologies to those who were looking for it.