Yesterday marked 19 years since I last saw my grandfather. It’s been 19 years since I last heard him laugh. 19 years since I’ve smelled his cologne. 19 years since I last hugged him. To think… 19 years ago I only would have come up to his belly during that hug. I could probably rest my head on his shoulder now; I wonder what that would have been like.
When I was five years old my mother moved my sister and me up to Kentucky to live with our grandparents. Mom had gotten a scholarship to go back to school, and her job(s) as a receptionist could only do so much for a family of three in a small Florida town.
I at first was upset about the move. I didn’t want to leave my best friend or my family that all lived within a block of our house. I knew it snowed in Kentucky. I knew we were moving to an even smaller town. I knew my sister was bawling and throwing a fit that her life was over; if she hated it this much then I did too. We had to give up our cat, MY cat. We had to sell my Fischer Price kitchen. We had to drive for 13 hours! I was five. For a five year old a 13 hour drive is like listening to Ann Margret sing the opening to Bye Bye Birdie 80 times in a row through headphones turned up full volume, in other words unbearable. My melancholy over moving lasted about 0.2 seconds though, as most states of melancholy for small children do.
My grandparents lived on a farm at the edge of town towards the top of a mountain. To the back was the barn and sprawling fields. Across the street from the front was a wooded hillside I could explore as I wished since no one lived there.
My grandfather immediately became my best buddy. We’d search for arrow heads in the fields he had just turned and plant vegetables in the little garden he started just for me at the side of the house. We’d eat onions and shuck peas while sitting on the front porch. We’d hunt daddy long legs on the wrap-around porch. When winter came we made snowmen. When spring came we caught locust and collected their husks. We caught a caterpillar in a tin can once and watched it bloom into a moth. We snuck off for ice cream sundaes and foot-long hot dogs at the drive-in. In the mornings before school we’d watch Gilligan’s Island together and eat Egg-Beaters since he had high cholesterol and wasn’t allowed what he deemed “real food.” I ate what he ate. I went where he went. I listened when he listened. I stood up when he stood up.
I’d go to church every Wednesday and Sunday to hear my grandfather preach to his congregation. On Wednesday nights he’d let me ring the church bell, and since I was so small still I'd swing from the rope up and down with each pull. When he’d sit me down in the front pew with my grandmother he’d leave me with a pad and pen to draw and some of the Werther’s candies he always carried around in his pocket. After church we’d go to Don Rico’s for supper and I’d sneak Grandpa a scoop of ice cream when Grandma wasn’t looking.
About a year after I moved in with my grandparents my dad and mom decided to get back together. Even with my dad there I still held a soft spot for my Grandpa. My dad was my father, but for all intents and purposes my grandfather was my real dad. He taught me how to climb a ladder and was subsequently the one that climbed up to get me back down. He showed me how to whistle and blow bubbles with my chewing gum. He wiped away my tears and fed me pudding when I had my front teeth removed. He taught me faith and understanding, acceptance and forgiveness. He was my dad, my grandfather and my best friend.
When my parents remarried two years later we moved out of my grandparent’s house to a town a few hours away. Looking back the signs that everything was about to change were there from the beginning. Before we moved I saw Grandpa and Grandma talking to a realtor one day after school. Grandma had started getting angrier when we’d run into Grandpa at the drive in eating sundaes. Strange men in suits were constantly showing up at the farm to talk to the adults. Later my grandfather’s dog disappeared, but no one questioned it or went looking for him save for me.
When Grandpa was first admitted to the hospital I was the first to go in and see him. My cousin who worked there had to sneak me in through the service entrance since he wasn’t allowed visitors yet. I’m not sure how long he had been on chemo before he was so bad they had to put him under 24 hours surveillance since no one really thought I could handle that information at seven years old. I remember breaking into the hospital with my Grandma and cousin and walking through hallways I wasn’t supposed to see. It felt like an adventure full of perils. I remember looking at his hospital room door and thinking it was huge and ominous; that something hideous befitting my journey was awaiting me beyond its pink coating. When I finally entered he laughed pulling me into a hug and told me I was the first person he had wanted to see. It had been his demands that brought me to his bedside that day. There was no angry beast waiting for me on the other side of the door, but instead my favorite person in the whole world. I remember this entire first day, but I don’t remember how he looked in that bed.
My family, and I mean my entire family, spent the weeks leading up to my grandfather’s death in the waiting room outside of his hospital room. My grandmother rarely left his side, and the rest of us would take turns going in while the everyone else set outside hoping for some good news that would never come. October 8th was my grandmother’s birthday, but there was little celebration as we all knew it would be the last she and my grandfather would spend together. The next day when it happened I remember all of the adults rushing into the room and telling all of us kids to be quiet and behave. The older kids were told to keep an eye on us, but they were all just crying. I didn’t really get what was going on, but I knew it couldn’t be good.
They took us in one by one after he had passed. The room was filled with flowers and balloons. The windows were all open and the sunlight streamed in making the room look happy. But for all the joy that the surroundings brought, the faces of my family members were anything but. Tear tracks marked every face but one. I have a picture in my head of what he looked like that day, but I know it is just the fantasy of a seven year old that just lost her best friend.
I still cry thinking about that day. I still cry thinking about his wake. Of course, after 19 years the thoughts of these days come fewer, the tears come less. Instead I remember his smile. Or the way he always smelled faintly of butterscotch. Or the amber ashtray he kept in the living room that never held a single ash because he hid his cigars and pipe from my grandmother in their later years. How his hair always reminded me of salt and pepper shakers. Or how much love you could see in his eyes when he looked at his wife and family. Or even the way he would run around with a five year old like he was a kid again.
It’s been 19 years, and come next October it will have been 20 years. Those are two very large numbers when you consider them in the spectrum of time. I’ve changed a lot over the last 19 years, I expect more to have changed by next. I’ve grown and I’ve learned. I’ve discovered myself and my beliefs. And I think I've become someone who my grandfather would be proud of. I’ve changed, but a part of me will always be the little girl stealing away after school on Tuesdays to giggle in the passenger seat of her grandfather’s Bronco on the way to the drive-in.
