I didn’t pay much attention to the priest’s homily. After his obligatory opening line, “I didn’t know Michael O’Reilly,” and a few “live life to the fullest” clichés, my attention drifted. I smoothed the wrinkles on my black dress and fiddled with my pearl bracelet. It was too small now, and red indents lingered on my wrist when I adjusted its position. But I remembered the night he gave it to me. On Christmas Eve, I sat on his lap and he clasped it around my little hand. I hugged him and told him how beautiful it was, and he winked and said, “Only the best for my blue-eyes.” I didn’t want to forget that.

“And now, Michael’s granddaughter will join us for the words of remembrance.” The priest cleared his throat, interrupting my daydream. I slipped the folded paper from my pocket and walked toward the alter, pausing to kneel before the podium and say a silent prayer. God, please let me get through this.

I carefully tilted the microphone down to reach my lips, and an ear-splitting screech echoed through the church.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

Dozens of eyes stared back at me. Some wet with tears, others smiling, most with blank stares.

“Hi everyone. My name is Amanda, and Mike O’Reilly is my wonderful grandfather.”

I couldn’t help but hope he would hear me, somehow. He would never believe I was doing this, in front of all of these people.

“My Grandpa was strong, passionate, humble, hardworking. You know all of these things if you knew him at all; but if you knew Grandpa well, you also know that he was remarkably stubborn and impolitely hilarious. Lasagna was his specialty; political correctness was not.”

A chuckle erupted among the crowd. This was the Grandpa I wanted them to remember. The priest who didn’t know him sat with his lips pursed. I smiled.

“When I was fifteen, Grandpa greeted my first boyfriend with a candid interrogation. ‘Hey, Romeo,’ he greeted him. ‘What are your political affiliations, who’s your favorite baseball team, and what are your intentions with my granddaughter?’ he uttered in a single breath. My cheeks blushed crimson red as I watched the poor boy fumble for answers. If he didn’t answer Republican and Yankees to the first two questions, he had no chance.”

The crowd laughed again, even the Priest this time. I can do this.

I rambled on for the next few minutes, sharing my memories with the audience. His repetitive jokes, that dimpled smirk, the way he encouraged me to dream big and never doubted that I would. This was the easy part.

“When I was two, my Grandpa taught me all of the lyrics to ‘Hit the road, Jack’ by Ray Charles. ‘If anyone ever gives you trouble,’ he told me, ‘sing them that song’. He embodied that advice for seventy-five stubborn years, let me tell you. And when he got sick, I told him to tell whatever was messing with his lungs, and his heart, to ‘hit the road Jack, and don’t come back no more.’”

“You see; my grandpa’s actual heart was weaker than we all would’ve liked, but his figurative heart was extraordinary, so strong that it could no longer be contained in his physical body. And Grandpa, know that you’ll be in my heart, forever.”

My eyes began to sting, and I blinked to keep the tears from escaping. I scanned the room for someone to look at, some stationary point to keep my eyes focused and my voice steady. But my mother sobbed in the front row, and my Uncle’s eyes hid behind a handkerchief; strangers stared at me with quivering lips, and his widow’s shoulders shook with muffled cries. Crap, I whispered. I looked up for a moment, willing the tears to sink back into my eyes. Staring at the still, distant, marble ceiling of the church, I silently prayed. Hold it together. I owe him this.

“When I said goodbye to him as he left for Pennsylvania the week before he passed, he said, ‘Come give me a hug, blue-eyes, I’m not going to see you for a long, long time.’ I assured him it wouldn’t be that long, that I’d come and visit at Christmas, but the finality of that last goodbye was more significant than I ever could’ve known.”

I thought back to that day—before his heavy breathing was diagnosed as an advanced, incurable lung disease; before the phone call from my weeping mother who stayed with him through his final breath; before stranger after stranger knelt by his casket; before his hand felt cold when I tried to hold it one last time; before I was overcome by this irreparable emptiness.

On that last day, he wore his yellow polo shirt—the one that only came out of his closet on good days—and his beige Yankee hat, inimitably shaped from decades of wear. I hugged him, and his chest was warm as I leaned into it, his yellow shirt tinged with the musky cologne he wore during the holidays. We said goodbye and I-love-you, and he was happy.

“I know I’ll see you again someday, Grandpa. When I get to heaven, I’ll look for the guy in the Yankees hat, who’s sitting in a leather recliner watching Law & Order with Ronald Reagan. I love you forever Grandpa, and I’ll always be your blue-eyes.”

The church was quiet. I looked at the priest for some signal to return to my seat, but he sat, still, at the alter. He paused there, for a few seconds, looking at me, before finally gesturing the congregation to stand. I stepped down from the podium, stopping to kneel before the casket. I couldn’t help it then; the heat in my eyes was overwhelming, the salty tears stinging more than I could handle.  But I had made it. Thank you, God. Thank you, Grandpa.