You never know how you’re truly going to feel when you finally accept the fact that someone is gone.
It didn’t happen when I received the call as I walked home from class and I could practically hear the lump in my dad’s throat through the phone line. It wasn’t the way my dad’s eyes looked (glossy, lifeless, detached) nor the way his voice sounded (cold, as though a port_on of himself was missing) when I saw him for the first time after making the seemingly e n d l e s s drive home from Tallahassee. It wasn’t even the drive to the airport on Christmas morning—our somber little family of four bridged the gaps of our silence with Simon and Garfunkel tracks in replacement of holiday themed music (because that’s how he would have wanted it.)
It happened when we stepped off the plane in Massachusetts and he wasn’t there to greet us. [As we approached my extended family, I created a space in my mind where he would have stood—right in-between my grandma and my uncle.] Outside, the air was cold, dry and stiff. Residual Christmas Eve snow melted beneath our feet.
The bitterness in the air complimented the lack of connection I felt with my surrounding scenery. On Cape Cod, we visited the bed and breakfast that he and Grandma built and established together so many years ago. While standing amongst the brand new interior of a place that used to be so familiar, the unfamiliar owners extended their hands to graciously share their condolences with our family and show us around.
Board games and whiskey sours at the house in Grafton just made me feel guilty because he wasn't there to enjoy it, and in the city, our meal at the Union Oyster House tasted dull, bland.
From Harwich to Grafton to Boston, nothing felt the same. Nothing ever will.
The enormity of the author's loss permeates the entirety of this blog post in a masterful incorporation of morose elements. The choice of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" set the tone for the feeling that the happy memories were in the past as the author mourned for her grandfather. "Hello, darkness, my old friend", the duo sings, as the author confronts the emotions she experienced after the death. Sensory elements dominate the post where the author describes practically hearing her father attempting to hold back tears, descriptions of her meal tasting empty, the overall lack of connection she felt with a place full of familial memories. Her grandfather, as a character, features prominently in the negative space even in the physical sense of the narrator mentally placing him into the scene with the extra-added spaces between the words "grandma" and "uncle". The musical component was featured in the text, as the usually cheerful Christmas season is replaced by the mourning period punctuated by her grandfather's favorite music. The structure of the post reflects the words as the grey font sets the mood immediately as well as the colorless photo of the snowy scene through a window, which the reader can compare to seeing from the narrator's point of view. The author takes adjectives and alters the appearance of them to emphasize their importance to the reader. The 'i' in portion is missing, as the loss is felt. The word detached in describing her father's eyes and the lengthening of the word endless to describe the drive from Tallahassee all adds to this purposeful and effective method. Overall, the post makes the reader feel the loss of her grandfather in a unique way. I personally was confused about the connection between this post and the previous, but perhaps it will become clear by the end of the story posts. The author’s sensory elements both in text and blog appearance pair nicely with the title of “Textual Evidence”.
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