On August 26th, my grandfather will be dead for 10 years. An entire decade. I still miss him so much.
My grandfather was one of my favorite people. I lived with him the first part of my life. My parents divorced when I was very young and my father lived with my grandparents during my early years. They helped him a lot, he was very young. I still remember that time with them in that house. My father telling us silly bedtime stories, the blue elephant slide in the backyard, the smell of coffee in the morning and Phil Donahue playing on TV. I remember my grandfather being caring and energetic and taking us for Happy Meals, probably more than he should have.
My grandmother died of cancer right before I turned 5 years old. She was only 56 years old. It was the great tragedy that defined our family. My father re-married and we moved away but still my grandfather remained close. He came to many of our school performances and we saw him often, especially in the summer.
He had a house on the bay in Stone Harbor and there was a little apartment above the garage where we stayed. We would spend weekends there often. I remember going to the beach with him. Usually, it was just our immediate family but sometimes he came for a bit. He would sit with a book, but occasionally he would get up and just walk into the ocean and dive in. He would swim out and then ride the waves back into the shore. I thought he was so strong, swimming through the ocean like that - especially for an old man. He was only in his early sixties then, but that was old to me.
I always would just follow him around and he never seemed annoyed. I'd walk out to the deck with him to check the crab and minnow traps. Sometimes he would steam them and I would just watch - he'd pour a whole can of beer and Old Bay on them, which I thought was so funny. I watched him a lot. I always wanted to be around him, he was a safe place for me. He had this flag pole at the edge of the water. There were 3 flags - a big American flag at the top and the Italian and Irish flags on either side-a nod to the heritage of my grandparents. I used to love when he asked for my help to take down the flags. We walked out to the flag pole and he took down the smaller flags first and handed them to me. Then he took down the big American flag, which he carried. We walked back to the garage and I was careful to make sure the flags didn't touch the ground.
The garage was dimly lit and there was a work table in there. I watched as he spread out the flags and folded them neatly-one by one. There was this picture hanging on the wall nearby, that was yellowed with age. It had a drawing of a little boy's face with a crinkled up nose and underneath was a caption that said, "Don't don't make no junk!" I don't know why this memory sticks out, but there was something about that moment that felt special to me.
When I turned 16, I got a job at a Wawa at the beach town nearby. He was so tickled. He would come in to see me every once in a while. He always grinned while he watched me work. I was in charge of making the breakfast sandwiches and he called me the "Sizzler Queen." It was really "Sizzli" but I didn't have the heart to correct him. We made arrangements for me to stay at his house quite a few weekends that summer.
He'd pick me up on Saturday afternoons from work, I'd spend Saturday night and Sunday with him, he'd take me to work on Monday and then I'd take the bus home Monday afternoons. This was my favorite time with him. Before, visits always included all my siblings and parents....but I had him all to myself.
He told me all kinds of stories. About working at Sears and the Campbell Soup Factory in Camden when he was young. He spoke of his time in Korea and stories from his childhood. He asked me a bunch of questions. We had little chats. I really enjoyed our car rides together. On these visits, I got to stay in the house - not just the apartment above the garage.
Sometimes I would shower after work and walk over the bridge and into town. I was making a little bit of my own money and I would get a chocolate water ice from the 5 and Dime and walk around and window show and watch workers make fudge in the candy shop. I enjoyed being downtown and alone in my thoughts.
He often had guests and it wouldn't be unusual for me to join them for dinner. There was always dessert! I enjoyed his "old people" friends. I found them interesting and funny. They were amused by me. My grandfather always made me tell this story that I relayed to him the first day I worked the cash register at Wawa. It was a busy day and the store was packed. This young man came in and asked for Lifestyles and I thought they were cigarettes and I couldn't find them. I yelled across the store to my manager, "Hey- where do we keep the Lifestyles?!?!" She came over and whispered, "They're condoms and they are under the counter." The poor kid was mortified. I'd never seen a face so red. My grandfather thought that was the funniest and he laughed until he cried. He'd always say, "Tell them the condom story!" He thought it was hysterical.
Sometimes he would drive me to the beach on Sunday and a few times he joined me with his wife. I liked the busier beach but I did agree to the "nun-beach" with them a few times.
He told me once during one of those visits that I reminded him of my grandmother. I didn't really get to know her but that made me happy because everyone loved her.
The following summer, I was dating my husband who had a car. I wasn't working down the shore anymore but he would invite us together for dinner- quite often. We had 4th of July there that year even. We had great times with him.
The last time I was at his beach house was right before I got married. He had me over for dinner and told me he had something for me. He pulled out a box of Christmas ornaments from the attic. They were for my Christmas tree, for my new life I was starting. I still have all of those ornaments.
I moved away and life became busy but we spoke every Sunday, like clock work. Not long conversations but just to check in. I realize now that it was because he worried about me. When my husband was in the hospital with meningitis, he called me everyday. He was someone in my life you genuinely cared. I enjoyed our Sunday talks. I told him about what was going on with life and the children and he updated me on all the going-ons in his life. On our Sunday calls he always spoke the children too, once they could speak. I am not close to anyone really, but I was close to him.
He had cancer many years prior but it had come back - I can't remember when. That year before he died, I tried to come visit as often as I could. We went up in June, I spent Thanksgiving there - my father and my girls were with me. I took the girls up there again in the spring. He loved seeing them, I think he really got a kick out of them. It made me happy that they got to get to know him a bit. My youngest has a very faint memory but my oldest remembers. He took them out to the back yard and showed them his birdhouses, he made sure they had cookies and soda. He watched them run wild.
With each visit, he was getting thinner and weaker. It broke my heart but we never talked about. We just tried to enjoy our time together.
That summer, his health had deteriorated significantly. "We have to go up there," my father said. I agreed. I left the children this time. My father and I got in the car and drove to Virginia to pick up my brother who had just gotten back from a deployment to Africa. It was just the three of us, like it had been in the very beginning.
He was bed bound by then and it took my breath away to see him. He was dying. My heart was so heavy but he was in good spirits during that visit. He told me that the priest visited every week to give him communion. I asked if he still had to do confession and he replied, "Just look at me. What do I need to confess? How much trouble can I get into?"
We went to say goodbye the last day there and I couldn't bear it. I sobbed while I hugged him. I knew it would be the last time I would see him alive. "Why are you crying?" he asked. Why I am crying? Because I need you, because I can't bear to imagine a world without you in it, because you are my favorite and I'm never going to see you again. Because one lifetime isn't enough.... I didn't need to say it. He knew. He rested his hand on mine and he looked up at me and "It's been a good life."
I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me then but I do now and I say that often- "it's been a good life" I spoke to him every Sunday until he slipped into a coma. I went up in those final days. I had to be with him. The waiting was excruciating. My husband was so great, he booked me a next day ticket and told me to just go and that he would take care of everything.
It was in the middle of the night on the 26th and my aunt woke me to tell me he was gone. I was relieved at that time. He had suffered. I don't remember much about that night. I felt like I was underwater, like everything was in slow motion. I remember taking turns with other family members to see him. I sat in the room with his body for just a few minutes and I touched his hand and I cried. The room was empty, his presence was gone from me. My buddy, my Pop-pop, was gone.
The funeral felt like a blur and I was glad to get home to my children. The children really saved me in the months that followed. There is little time to be sad when you are caring for young children. I had just gotten a promotion at work and I threw myself into that. But there were times it hit me out of the blue - Sundays were hard because I was still expecting his call. Or sometimes I would have a dream and he would be there with me, even the sound of seagulls made me sad.
I still feel him all around me. I have memories, pictures and cards that I treasure. A few years after he died, my parents divorced. I visited with my father a lot then. I was at his house and he declared that he was getting rid of everything in the garage that was left behind. He was a broken man at that time. I understood his need to purge everything and start over. I didn't blame him.
I went out to the garage and I sat on the floor. There were bins and bins of papers- pictures, drawings from my siblings, old report cards. Things that parents keep. The custody papers from when I was a little girl were in there. I flipped through them and there was a piece of paper that was neatly typed up. It was the summary of an interview with my grandfather. It was right after my grandmother died when it was just him, my father, and me and my brother in the house. In this document he talks about my father and the division of duties of our care, and how he missed our grandmother and how we "the children" we well, and amazing and that we would be okay. I sat on that dusty garage floor and I wept. You would have thought I found a hidden treasure. It is my favorite thing of my grandfather's. I saved it for myself.
I miss him terribly...but life goes on. I still think of him often but I'm not so sad anymore. He had a good life and I have so many happy memories because of him. I don't think one can ask for much else. On the 10th anniversary of his death, I felt the need to "do" something. To commemorate it somehow. I can't go visit his grave and leave flowers.
I'm having dinner instead. An Irish feast to honor my favorite Irishman. Corn beef, cabbage, potatoes and Irish bread pudding with a caramel whisky sauce. My father and brother will attend. We will eat off of my grandmother's china and we will sit at the table that he once sat at with his own children. We will enjoy each other's company and after, we will watch home movies. We will remember him.
So Pop, I miss you old man but one day we will meet again. Thanks for everything. It's been a good life.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
