The Man Who Stopped the World

My mom had already called my family: my grandpa and grandma, great-grandparents, my cousin, my aunts, and uncles.  

“Your Uncle Michael is on his way from Granbury, Peepaw is stuck in customs, Aunt Lexi will be here Monday, Ma will be here tomorrow and the G-units are coming with her.    

As she told me this, my Aunt Lexi texted me. She told me that she loved me and would see me soon, and she was sorry.  

Everybody just kept saying they were sorry.  

The rest of the day was spent crying as we drove to Burleson to see my Grandma Logozzo and to see Gimpy’s mother, Memaw, who had been at a family reunion with his sister, Traci.  

We waited patiently at their house until they arrived. I went out back and sat on the porch. We had been out there just weeks prior eating ribs and playing with my baby cousins, Luke and Martin.  

When Memaw and Aunt Traci arrived, they immediately started crying as they hugged my mom and Kylie and me. We tried not to cry, but we couldn’t hold back the tears.   

We sat in silence for several minutes then my Memaw spoke.  

“He loved you guys very much. I haven’t seen him this happy in a long time. I’m sorry he left us.”  

I began to sob quietly.  

I went to the bathroom to clean my face and wash my hands. I looked at my face in the mirror, and I was surprised at how old I looked; my eyes were red from crying, my mouth was stuck in a frown, my hair was on top of my head in a loose bun, and I was still in my sweats. I came back out and it was time to go back to the house, but I couldn’t go back, not to the place where my father had died.  

At the time I just felt this immense emptiness, like there was a giant sinkhole in my stomach and I was being dragged farther and farther into the black abyss.