How do you say goodbye?

How do you say goodbye to someone who has impacted your life more than you can ever put into words?  Someone who has been there for everything, supported you, encouraged you, and could see right through your lies?  How do I say goodbye to someone that I do not want to let go of, that I don't want to leave me, and that I feel part of my heart is leaving as well?  How can I thank him for everything he has ever done, or not done? 

I do not have the answer to this question.  As I sit here in the waiting room at the hospital I have asked myself that question a lot of times, and I still don't have an answer.  My grandfather (Pa) is my hero, the strongest yet gentlest man I have ever known.  So many of my childhood memories revolve around him.  Working in the tobacco, going to the beach, sitting in his swing, and oh so many other memories in between.  Now he isn't in good health, and we do not know what the next hours or days will hold.  How do I say goodbye?

Yesterday I just held his hand telling him how much I love him, and in the silence prayed that he knows how much he is loved.  I remember being little and my parents telling me about heaven and people passing away, and my only thought was I don't want Pa to die.  I think I hurt my parents' feelings because I was crying and all I could say was that I didn't want Pa and Granny to die.  Here I am many years later and I still cry not wanting that to happen. 

While we are at the same hospital that my dad passed away at, and there are some things that are similar there are also things that are not the same.  I have always been close to Pa, even when we didn't agree I knew he had my back if I needed anything.  I know the hurt of the lose of someone close to you.  I also not only have to deal with this myself, but also have to help Emma process this.  How can I help her process it if I can't.  Maybe we can process it together.  Last night we read Heaven is Real, and this morning she woke up singing "Go Tell it on the Mountain"

I know it is the selfish part of me not wanting to let go because I know if given the choice Pa would choose God over earth.  however, it doesn't take away the pain.  I heard a song this morning and two lines in that song summed up my feelings - "world crumbling around me" and "broken in the silence".  I am a grandpa's girl (always have been always will be) but I still do not know how to say goodbye. 

Instead I think I will just keep telling him how much I love him, I want those to be the words that he hears, that he knows, and that I don't know what I would do without him.