My grandfather is my first dead person. Other dead people have been peripheral, siblings of friends or relatives twice removed. Other people's mothers, other people's grandparents.
It's been a week and I'm still not sure how to feel about it.
I don't want to remember my grandfather as a saint, or hold him bitter against my heart. I'll remember him as he was, alternately angry and loving, teacher and student as I guided him through the intricacies of e-mail on his orange iMac. This way I can keep learning from him, remembering him when I keep people I love at a distance, or when I don't. His death is tragic because there was much more he could have taught me, and because I didn't learn enough while he was alive.
He wasn't the best grandfather, but he wasn't the worst. And I wasn't the best granddaughter, but I know he thought I wasn't the worst either.
I have distinct memories of him calling me on my birthdays and telling me he loved me.
Meredith B. Osborn '02 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.