My dear grandad passed away on Easter Saturday of this year. It's been exactly four months since I received a call from a man working in the Yorkshire Ambulance Service telling me that my grandad had been found 'deceased in the house'. I am still angry and confused about the way this man told me that my grandad had passed away. He did tell me his name at the beginning of the call but I have completely forgotten it. I don't know if I would ever make a complaint, but the fact that he couldn't find a better way to pass on the news and then told me I 'sounded young' - I wonder who he is. I wonder if he's ever had to lose a family member.

My grandad was the last of my grandparents to pass away. My grandma (his wife) died of cancer when I was eight and my mum's parents died within a year of each other when I was twelve. I was too young to really grasp loss and really know or love my grandparents. This time I am struggling.

I think what's made this worse is the shock of my grandad's death. He had so many ailments that it was hard to believe that one of them could really end his life. In fact, the mass in his stomach that burst and caused his heart to give out was a very recent problem on the end of a long, long list. He seemed invincible, though frail - he had thrombosis that cost him his lower left leg, diabetes for years, high cholesterol, digestive problems. He never drank water and he ate two big meals a day. His short term memory had begun to disintegrate after two small strokes a couple of years ago - this was our main concern as he couldn't remember if he'd taken his medication or done his insulin injection and he was constantly confused. I think we all knew that these signs didn't indicate a very long life ahead of him, but I expected him to at least see me graduate from university. Obviously this didn't happen. His death was sudden and out of the blue. I also suspect that I would have had an easier time with the news if I'd heard it from my parents rather than a cold stranger.

How do you know when you've accepted a loss? How can you tell if you're still 'processing', grieving, whatever it is? I'm still sad about my grandad's death. I still cry occasionally. But I've been suffering some derealisation as a result of my panic attacks, which makes me even more prone to expecting my grandad to wheel himself into the room every time we go up to his house. It's not real yet. I'm worried it never will be.

I suppose you take each day one at a time. Keep busy. We've started sorting out his house - all of his clothes are gone (divided between family and a local hospice) and we cleared the attic and one bedroom. It's very weird emptying a wardrobe that belongs to someone who died. I can't quite describe what it is that makes me so uncomfortable about touching a dead person's (clean, ready to be worn) clothes. Something lingers, maybe. Perhaps it's the reality that this person no longer needs them.

I was also thinking about how we often describe the dead as in another place. It is incomprehensible that someone can just stop existing. That consciousness ends. Where do we go when we die? Maybe we go to a great kingdom in the clouds with an entity that calls itself God. Maybe there is another journey we take as ourselves. Maybe we wake up as a larva or a baby bird. Or, we stay in the same place. With our loved ones.

I doubt my grandad could have read this even when he was alive, but I miss you and I love you. Always and forever.

Catherine
xx