Two Thursdays ago, I lost my grandpa.
I guess he's not exactly lost. I know he's in heaven, playing endless rounds of golf and eating desserts to his heart's desire, but still, I feel the loss. I feel it in the way that he's no longer going to answer the phone with his deep, raspy "hello," and when asking if I could talk to grandma, responding with, "Can you?" Note to the wise - the question is always "May I?"
I felt it in the way that there was a void when sitting at the dinner table the day after the funeral. Never again will he sit at the head of the table, not so nonchalantly looking at the score of the football game in the middle of dinner. No more, "Does anyone want bread?" No more complaining the vegetables aren't done enough. All of those little details that I stashed away as inconsequential are now those little details that actually make me tear up.
"Are you writing a book?" he'd ask when I asked a lot of questions. "Yeah!" I'd say, knowing the next line so well. "Know what you can do with the last chapter? Flush it down the toilet and make it a mystery."
"Grandpa - how do I know if this cottage cheese is okay or not?" I asked once over the phone, while gazing uncertainly at the container like it was about to grow fangs and bite me, "Well take a bite. What's the worst that's going to happen? You won't die," he said in an incredulous tone. His advice, as usual, was correct. The cottage cheese was okay and I didn't in fact, die from trying it.
Never will I ever get to pull out my wallet and pay for his meal. "You bring your money this time?" he always asked as the bill would get to the table. "No!" I would say in my child chortle. "Just like I suspected. Always making me pay for everything."
"Hey there's your house!" Cue the house, almost literally imploding in on itself, exactly like that split-down-the-middle tornado house card in the Game of Life board game. You know which one I'm talking about. "That's NOT my house!!" I would say, Every. Tuesday. as we would drive by it on the way to bowling. That house is no longer there, but every time I drive by the place where it stood, I still think about that dilapidated structure.
"Gosh you're heavy!" he'd dramatically exclaim as I would squeeze myself into the side of his chair to lean on my favorite pillow person.
"Grandpa, you fell asleep again." "No I didn't. I was studying the inside of my eyelids."
"Hit the ball!" is what I'll hear in my head every time I see a golf ball. "I'm trying!" my five year-old self indignantly proclaimed, staring out over the bill of one of his baseball hats. "Well are you afraid you'll hurt the worms?" Hands on my hips - "No! I'm trying to hit the ball!"
None of these moments are the moments I talked about to everyone at the funeral. I stated I could stand up there for hours, telling people about my memories - I have just a month shy of 27 years of them stored up in my brain. A passage in Jennifer Gardner Trulson's book, Where You Left Me summed my speech up perfectly. She felt the urgency to express to others how happy she and her husband had been before she was tragically widowed on September 11th. That, she wanted everyone to know she was going to be okay. I guess I never understood her desperation at that point she wanted to convey to others until two Thursdays ago.
The last time I saw him, he gave me two hugs before I left. It was Easter, and I had only come home again because I knew he wasn't doing well and my uncle was having surgery the following day. "You behave yourself, do you understand me?" I told him after the second hard squeeze, stooped over his chair. I made my hand to eye gesture - the telltale sign that I've got my eye on you, kid. "Why?!" he asked. "Because, you know the rule! No doctor's visits unless I'm here! Be good! I love you." I was spared from his heartbreaking demise in the final week, and for that I'm actually truly grateful.
As I say to everyone who apologizes for my loss, "It's sad that he's no longer here, but he's truly in a better place." That's my happy thought when I think about these past two weeks.
So, Grandpa, if you're reading this - because we all know you were such a wiz at the computer and internet - I hope you made your chip shots today on the links. I hope your vegetables were mush and the rhubarb pie was exactly like the kind your mother made you. I hope you put salt on all of your food and had a great time starting a move on TV halfway through. We'll be okay down here because we now no longer have to worry about you going rogue and climbing up the incredibly rickety, leaning ladder to cut a tree down!
I love you to the moon and back. I always have, and I always will. Enjoy the peace and quiet for now, because at some point - waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the road, I'll be up there, filling you in on my opinions on life.
