I started writing this post in May, but didn't quite finish, then I started again, adding the second part, but then was interrupted again by the events of this week. This has been an excruciating couple of months for my family. Read on and you will find out why.
I have something in common with my children now that we didn't have in common two months ago. I wish it were something that could have waited, but these things have a way of happening when you least expect them.
It all started for me on tax day, April 15. I was at my desk at work when I got one of the worst phone calls of my life. "Daddy's gone," my father told me, referring to his 86-year-old dad, my only living grandparent. Grandpa Mickey (his real name was Milton, but he was always Grandpa Mickey to us) had been in an automobile accident some time before, and had been having health problems since then; that morning he had passed away in his house, ironically, while getting dressed for a doctor appointment. I called my wife to let her know; I think it was almost as hard for her as it was for me. Her biological grandfathers have been dead for quite some time, and I think she had adopted mine in her heart as her own. We all loved him very much.
My earliest memories of Grandpa Mickey are of him in his easy chair. In fact, a LOT of my memories of Grandpa are of him in his easy chair; he and my dad and uncle are world-champion sitter-downers. Time at Grandpa's house often consisted of hanging out in the living room chatting until he fell asleep in his chair, and then waiting until he woke up to chat some more! As a child, though, I remember feeling a great deal of respect for him, bordering on fear. I wasn't at all afraid that he was going to abuse me, but I was definitely afraid to cross him. I don't remember him ever giving me swats, but I do remember getting severely bawled out a time or two! But I never had any doubt that he loved me. I've always hoped that as a dad I could be described by my children one day as "tough but fair," and Grandpa Mickey was nothing if not that. And judging by the reverent way his children always treated him, they felt the same way about him. He was always in your corner, but he wasn't going to put up with any baloney out of you!
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| Hannah hanging out with Grandpa Mickey, January 2010 |
Grandpa Mickey wasn't actually my biological grandfather. When my dad and his brother were very young, their mother was divorced from their father and later married Milton. He adopted her two sons, and then they had a daughter together. I don't minimize biological relationships at all, but to me it's notable that he was their dad, and then my grandpa, not by blood but by love. In my lifetime I went from visiting at Christmas, to living briefly with my grandparents as a child, to living in town, to living out of town, to being away at college, to even living at their house for a year or so as a young man, and never felt any annoyance from Grandpa at my youthful follies. I always felt protected and taken care of when I was around him. He knew about almost anything (with the exception of computers; he never owned one, although I did cart them to his house every now and then), and if you needed something, he probably had at least one of them somewhere. He loved my wife like a daughter; when we would visit, she would stay up late talking to him about country music, or just whatever. He loved all of his grandkids - my two kids and my brother's five - but taken in large doses, they could really wear him out!
When I was about fifteen years old, I got to go on a vacation with Grandpa Mickey and Grandma Clarice (Grandma passed away when I was in my mid-twenties). It was mostly a New England trip, although we threw in a little bit of Canada for good measure. I got to see the St. Louis arch, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, the Smithsonian and all the Washington D.C. monuments, Niagara Falls, and those Canadian stop signs that say "Arrêt" instead of "Stop". During that trip, I learned several things: (1) modern country music is just twangy classic rock; (2) Grandma wasn't much good with maps, but Grandpa sure appreciated a copilot who was; and (3) Grandpa did NOT like large cities. Grandpa was from a small town, and whenever we got anywhere near a population center, he would start having stomach cramps and have to live on buttermilk and Pepto-Bismol for a while! Despite that minor handicap, we did manage to visit all of the historical and touristy areas that Grandma and I wanted to see, and I have a whole hunk of wonderful memories to show for it.
Cathy and I got to sing "In The Garden" at Grandpa's funeral. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, but the honor of getting to perform at the funeral of someone I respect so much was only equaled by the honor of getting to carry his casket. We miss him terribly; it will be really strange when we go to visit family and friends in Shreveport to not stay with him at the big old house he built himself. Up to the very end, he lived there on his own, reading AARP magazines and watching the evening news and driving himself to Golden Corral to flirt with the waitresses and falling asleep in that chair of his. I'll always think of him as the model of an independent guy. Maybe one day when I'm an old man, my grandkids will see me in as positive light as I see him.
A month after Grandpa Mickey's funeral, we got word that Cathy's father, Don Angel, was really sick. By the time we got to visit him in the hospital, he was very VERY sick, but he did have some brief periods of partial lucidity when he was able to communicate, and once he even gave Cathy a hug and a kiss and told her he loved her. A few days later he was gone, leaving the second hole in our hearts within five weeks.
Cathy and I met online in late 1998. This was WAY before online relationship-building was considered anything like normal, but we met through my Web site about a common interest of ours, and we hit it off immediately. We chatted online, then in long, drawn-out phone calls, and then finally I asked her out for an actual date. When I got there to pick her up, Cathy's dad wasn't there... he was working late and wasn't able to be there to meet me. So I didn't meet Don on my first date with his daughter, but I was able to find out what he thought of me soon enough. My job was not far from the restaurant which he owned and at which Cathy, her mom, and several family members worked, so I came to the restaurant for lunch one day. I ordered the chili cheeseburger. I didn't know until much later that what I got was not the regular chili cheeseburger!
The burger I got was served open-face. It was on a bed of lettuce that filled the whole plate. It was the ultra-deluxe, super-dooper, thank-you-for-making-my-daughter-happy-again cheeseburger. Now that I think about it, I don't think I ever brought that up again with him in later years, but that was clearly what he was saying to me. Since then, I've done everything in my power to make my marriage a joyful one - and show myself worthy of that cheeseburger!
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| Cathy and me with Don, circa 2000 |
I didn't even meet Don that day in the restaurant, but it wasn't long afterward that I did. When Cathy and I decided to forego the big expensive stressful wedding and run off together to Arkansas without telling anyone where we were going, Don was ecstatic and even gave us some spending money for the trip. I know he appreciated me for saving his daughter from the depression she had been experiencing, and I also know that as the years went by he appreciated and loved me more and more simply for who I was. We had many discussions about life, the Word of God, politics, finances... all kinds of stuff. I'm lucky to still have my dad in this world, but Don became like a second dad in a lot of ways.
I learned early on that if Don ever said, "Here, eat this," the proper response, hungry or not, was just to eat it... not out of courtesy, but because if Don said Eat This and you ate it, you were going to be SO glad you did. The man knew his food. He was a restaurant and catering man for most of his adult life, and I don't think there was a food that you could think of that he didn't know something about, and probably know off the top of his head how to prepare an amazing plate of it for you. He and Cathy's mom Linda fed me huge portions of more good food than you could imagine. I can't figure out why, after being in this family for eleven years now, I'm not as big as a house!
Don's wife Linda passed away in 2007. They married when they were not more than children, both still in their teens; this year would have been their fiftieth anniversary. The week that Linda died, I just remember that whenever we came over to Don's house, he was just sitting there in the middle of his couch. He usually had loved ones on either side of him. Sometimes he was shaking. He could barely move or speak. This went on for days and days and days. She had died at home, but he wouldn't leave the house, and we wondered how he was ever going to survive the loss. But survive he did; eventually he could speak again, and get around on his own, and once people were sure he would be OK on his own, we were comfortable letting him be by himself sometimes. Still, many of us visited him, and he took particular pleasure in spending time with his beloved nephew Wayne. Don loved his kids, their spouses, and their grandkids, and I think he received a lot of strength from having us around. But the grief of losing Linda took a huge toll on him, and that manifested itself in his body. He was constantly feeling ill, and as the years went by, it seemed to get progressively worse. Whenever we could talk him into going to a doctor, he would get medicine that would help a little bit, but his health problems always seemed to be there, lurking in the background.
In August of 2009,
Wayne passed away. It would be difficult to overstate the devastating impact of this on Don. He and Linda had been like an older brother and sister to Wayne since they were kids together. Wayne was actually one of the few people who could get him out of the house in later years to go do stuff. They would go fishing a lot, or just go out for burgers, or go coin-shopping together (they were collectors), or whatever. Don had two sisters, and one of them passed away a year or so before Linda did; outside of his other sister (who is still alive today), Wayne was emotionally the closest of his relatives still left from his childhood. Losing Wayne was another heavy burden on the back of an already overburdened man. Don's son Kevin took to coming over to his house daily to keep him company and make sure he was all right. My wife and I came over as often as we could, too, but sometimes he asked us not to come over with the kids, despite the fact that it brought him a lot of joy to be with them, because he didn't want to get sick in front of them.
We were privileged to be in the hospital room when we knew Don was probably going to leave this world and go be with Jesus. His breathing had become labored and noisy, but it was regular and actually sounded quite strong and loud. We sat there, visiting a little and cheering each other up, but I knew everyone in the room was listening, relieved whenever he took another breath.
Don took a breath, and then the next one didn't happen. I almost started to cry, because I knew it was the last breath he would take on Earth.
But it wasn't! After a long pause, Don took one... last... breath. And then he was gone. My firm belief is that he was fighting to the end to stay here for his family's sake. He was just that kind of man. He loved much, and he loved well. And now he's in Heaven loving his wife, his nephew, his sister, and all the other loved ones who went on before him.
So now, within the space of just a few months, I have the recent loss of a grandfather in common with my two children. We will recover and we will go on with our lives, as Grandpa Milton and Papaw Don would have wanted us to, but each of them still has a place in our hearts that can never be filled again this side of Heaven. We miss them both so much.
