Forty years.
It's been 40 years, but I remember it so vividly.
I was a senior at Montclair State College, a commuter school. Grandpa had been diagnosed with cancer (initially a brain tumor) a few months prior.
After a successful surgery to remove the tumor, he underwent radiation therapy as an outpatient, but when his care became too much for my grandmother to handle at home, he was admitted to the hospital, and it was downhill from there.
I was in denial. This was Grandpa, after all! He'd recover and return home to take his seat at the head of the Sunday dinner table soon.
But on this day, 40 years ago, when I returned home from classes and opened the garage door, my mother's car was already there. Grandpa had slipped into a coma, she said.
We went to visit him that night. Such a dimly lit, depressing place was Orange Memorial. It was one of those hospitals where older Italians went to die.
Grandpa had stopped talking to us weeks ago—he had not wanted to return to the hospital—but now his eyes were closed and he may not have known we were there.
I still had a glimmer of hope in my heart as we rode the elevator to the lobby. People emerged from comas, didn't they?
The next afternoon, November 3, 1983, when I opened the garage door, Mom's car was there again.
And I knew.
So much life has been lived during the 40 years since—holiday celebrations, graduations, weddings, funerals, as well as the births of all of Grandpa's great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.
I know he has been with me through it all, and he continues to watch over all of us.
But I will never stop missing him.
