Remembering Grandpa

I received the news yesterday that my great-grandfather passed away, so naturally I've been thinking of him quite a bit. It's more good news than bad, as he was in his nineties and had been suffering failing health for quite some time. I've smiled more than cried as I've looked back on his memory and I feel a lot of peace knowing that I was able to say "Goodbye" (I've visited him every time I went home since I moved away knowing it could be the last time I saw him).

He's always been one of the coolest men on the planet in my book and I'd like to take a minute to tell you why.

He wasn't a man of many words in the late years that I knew him, but the words I remember were mostly jokes. I wasn't born until he was already an old man, his hands weathered from a lifetime of working with them to provide for his family and every time we visited, we drove past the limestone house he built with them. For as long as his health and mobility could allow it, he drove the four miles into town twice a day to play dominos with a few other old men in the back of the bar on the main drag. In the summer, he sat the shade of the woods and whittled (and gave me an extra pocket knife so I could join him as often as I cared to) and often made small tops out of wooden spools thread used to come on. He also fished every day he was able, and one of the highlights of my childhood was the time he took me fishing with him when I was about 8 years old and I caught one myself!

He wore overalls everyday of his life, and almost always when the occasion called for dress attire he chose dress overalls. I laughed when I called my great-aunt and she told me she was out to go pick up a new pair of them to bury him in. I think that's the way he'd want it. This picture is from when he was Grand Marshall of the town parade one summer after I moved to Jersey--dress overalls.

He had a little rat terrier called Spot as a companion in the later years before he went into a nursing home and though I never saw him actually smoke a cigar, I rarely remember walking into his place without seeing one in his hand.

I was very blessed in the last few times I saw him. He suffered from dementia but he always knew who I was when I came. I was prepared for him not to, so when his eyes lit up with recognition and he said, "Well looky there!" as I walked in the room when I went to see him after my mission, my own eyes filled with tears of gratitude. His eyes also lit up when I saw him the last time. Though a moment later when he saw my 7 months pregnant belly he gasped and said in a low voice, "You've been having some bad fun!"

That's Grandpa.