My grandfather, Jacques Cohen, passed away last week. It was very sad, but also a best case scenario. He was 89 years old, and rather than it happening during one of the many medical emergencies that he’s had over the years, he passed peacefully at home. He had spent the day with my mom and was cooking some shepherd’s pie to have with my aunt. He felt tired and went to rest at the end of the day and that was it.
I had never really been to a full funeral before. I guess that I’ve been lucky. There was only one other occasion; I had a friend in high school who drowned and at the time it was the worst thing I had ever experienced. That was a large funeral since many people from the school attended, and we didn’t go along to the burial afterward. I didn’t make it to Frankie Manning’s funeral, just his memorial. So this was my first time really experiencing it.
My grandfather was always surrounded by women and I don’t think he really knew what to do with them. It wasn’t until he met my husband, and Geoff started to ask him some questions about WWII and other parts of his youth that he really opened up. In all the years of knowing him, I had never seen him animated like he was with Geoff. Sadly, I don’t even have a photo of me with him, but I do have a beautiful one of him with Geoff and that makes me happy.