Yesterday was the last day of school for the trimester and since I missed over a week when Grandpa Jem passed away, I have had to work extra hard to finish all of my projects except my ancestor project which I was given an "extension" until next trimester. Mrs. Butcher and Mr. Grady agreed to let me finish later because it has been tough finishing a project that involves Grandpa Jem. The project is not the important thing on my mind these days. I have had a really hard time getting used to not seeing Grandpa every day and often I go into his room expecting to see him and all that is there is his empty chair. Just thinking about it is making me sad and I am not sure when I will feel better. To make matters worse, Gretchen is leaving for good next week. I cannot even think about it because it is yet another person leaving my life. I have cried about Grandpa Jem many times, but I haven't cried about Gretchen leaving and even though she hasn't cried in front of me, she has come close many times. Since yesterday was our last day of school, it was also Gretchen's last day. She seemed happy to finish her work, but sad that she wasn't going to be coming back. We could hardly look at each other because I think we were both afraid to cry at school in front of everyone. Mrs. Butcher seemed to know what was going on below the surface however and she asked me if I was doing ok. I said that I was ok, but somehow, even though I knew this day might come, it doesn't seem real. She just nodded her head and put her hand on my shoulder and said "Sometimes life doesn't seem very real until time has passed and we have time to put things in perspective". I wasn't sure exactly what she meant, but I just looked down at my feet and said "thank you Mrs. Butcher". She asked how my family was doing and I said "ok, I guess" and said that my Dad is taking it real hard.
It has been good to spend lots of time on my school work lately to take my mind off of everything. But now that I am finished I don't know what to do and Mom has suggested I go back to the counselor next week before I go to writing camp, even though I don't really feel like going to camp anymore. Both Mom and Dad think I should still go to camp because being around the house will just make me more sad. I guess I agree with that and I have decided to go to camp a week from tomorrow. Grandpa seemed happy when I told him about camp and he would be disappointed if I didn't go.
Well, this is a tough way to start the second year of my blog "Stories from Lazy Eye Ranch", but hopefully I will feel like writing about Gretchen leaving and more about my family and Grandpa's life. I finally found the piece of paper with the combination to Grandpa's locker written on it. I had been looking for it since he passed away and was feeling awful that maybe I had lost it for good and that we would never get the locker open. Also, I was upset that Grandpa had trusted only me with the combination and that I had already let him down and he had only been dead for a few days! I cried and cried about losing the combination, but Mom said that it wasn't really the paper I was crying about and I said "but no one will ever see his writings now!" and became more angry than sad and Mom held me until I calmed down. Just when I thought that Dad was going to have to pry open the locker, I found the paper inside the one old shoe that I had left. It is strange because I don't remember putting it in there, but then I couldn't remember exactly where I had put it in the first place (as I shrugged my shoulders).
"Perspective" means "a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view" or "true understanding of the relative importance of things; a sense of proportion". "Its use (besides Mrs. Butcher's): "we must keep a sense of perspective about what he's done."
That usage gives me an idea to look through Grandpa's locker and write a story about his life from the writings and pictures that I find. I guess then I could learn about Grandpa Jem and his life from a new "perspective".

The painting is by Vincent Van Gogh.

My Grandpa Jem has passed away. He died at night on Tuesday at the hospital. Last week he had started to feel sick after riding a horse for the first time in months. The next day Dad took him to the doctor and he said that Grandpa was not well and he needed to go to the hospital. On his way to the hospital he had a "major stroke" but survived three days before passing away right after Dad left the hospital on Tuesday. The funeral is on Monday and relatives are flying in from all over the country.
Dad didn't want Grandpa to ride our horse Bella, but Grandpa really wanted to and said that he was going to whether Dad wanted him to or not. He did seem to feel better that day and since it was his anniversary with Grandma, he said that he wanted to ride a horse to help honor her. Mom thinks that somehow Grandpa knew he was going to die soon and wanted to ride one last time. I can hardly write about this without crying, but I wanted to let people know why I had not written in awhile and it is helping me to deal with my Grandpa's death. I will write more after the funeral is over and once I return to school.
Thinking of Grandpa Jem...