Miserable Minneapolis

Ah, Minneaplis. The finer of the twin cities. The drivers are courteous, the air is clean, Caribu outnumbers Starbucks and in general things are all right. I've been coming here every year since I was born.
Our family used to go to Camp Snoopy, the amusement park in the famous Mall of America, every time we came here. Grandpop would buy us presents just for coming to visit. We stayed in our cousins house and Aviva and I stayed up all night playing the awesome lego sets and doll house our older cousins had grown out of.
It used to be so fun here.
And when my cousins went to college and their parents got divorced we started staying in the Springhill suites, a two minute drive from Grandpop's apartment. Aviva and I would stay up all night being hyper and crazy.
That was okay too.

But I've come less and less in the past few years. It isn't fun anymore. Too may things have changed.

I'm only here now because my grandfather's girlfriend (who we have kept in contact with since his death) is having a 90th birthday party and everyone is making a big fuss. As well they should; she's an amazing lady.

I only have to be here one night, luckily, because work interferes with my family's planned time here.

But Grandpop died last year. The grieving process has been hard for me. Though I'm sure it is for everyone. At home I only think of him and the other devastations of the year that he died from time to time. In Minneapolis- they haunt me every hour.

Though we still stay in the same hotel every single trip, it doesn't feel the same without him popping by for the free breakfast with us in the mornings.

Just like it didn't seem the same when my aunt and uncle got divorced.

Just like it didn't seem the same when we stopped going to Mall of America every trip.

Nothing gold can stay.
Just like all things- Minneapolis fades.