I'll start by giving my deepest sympathy and condolences.
I went to Massachusetts Maritime Academy for my college career. Learning how to live and work on a ship are part of the education there. A "cruise" is completed every year in the winter, where you go to sea for two months. I remember being 18, half a world away on my freshman year cruise, and suddenly having a feeling that something was gone. Something had changed in the role my grandfather played in my life, and I didn't know how. After returning home, my father told me his dad had died while I was gone. All I could do was ask when.....it coincided perfectly to the day I had "the feeling" I never felt right for a while after that.
Shortly thereafter, I visited the gravesite, where my grandmother, the most beatiful human being I have ever known, was laid to rest a couple of years before. I saw the tree, with it's branches casting a perfect, protecting shade over their headstone, and thought of how, if he was going to pick the absolute, most perfect spot there to stop and rest awhile, it would be right there, where they were, under that tree. Suddenly, all that was missing was made whole, and things were right again. I stopped there a few weeks ago, with my own two boys. I cannot describe the feeling I felt there. A pride like I've never experienced, or thought I was capable of experiencing.
Man, my advice is to visit as soon as you can. I hope it makes your life more complete, as you search for things untold inside yourself.
-Sean
