Happy birthday, Papa.

Today, my grandfather (“Papa”) would have turned 87 years old. The last time we celebrated his birthday was five years ago.

During the last few years of his life, Papa always became emotional on his birthday. His last birthday, he cried while we sang to him, and I will never forget that. He knew that he was sick.

This morning, my husband and I were awake a lot earlier than normal. I took a shower and we drove to Kroger to purchase flowers and balloons. Historically, I like to go to Dollar Tree for decorations; however, I’ve been trying to keep it more simplistic based on the mere fact that all of it is going to get thrown away anyway. Truthfully, I don’t even like the idea of purchasing balloons for this reason.

After we left the cemetery, we went to Tudor’s. I ordered a plain, buttered biscuit (just like Papa would have ordered). Then, we stopped at Kroger one last time to buy stuff for dinner tonight, cat food, and pop. We came home and played Fortnite for a couple hours. Jeremy took a nap and left for work a few minutes ago. Tonight, Jeremy is going to cook a meatloaf for supper, and I am going to make fried potatoes in the air fryer.

Today is a harder day than normal. Any sort of holiday or birthday is rough. Coming from a family that held massive celebrations for every holiday, it’s difficult to sit in the house in complete silence. It’s difficult living in the very house that the majority of the celebrations were held in.

Needless to say, I’m taking it easy today.

Papa, I hope you enjoyed your decorations. Everyone in the cemetery knows it’s your birthday today. ❤︎⁠