Posted on 12/10/2004 6:10:03 PM PST by CHARLITE
About this time of year I start to feel like crap.
The holidays arrive, and along with hideous plastic illuminated Santas and creepy blue icicle lights returns the painful memory of Grandpa’s last Christmas.
I remember it well. You see, I wasn’t there. I volunteered to work at the newspaper that day because a) I needed extra money, b) I wanted to score bonus points with the boss and c) I figured no one would miss me. Back then, in my early 20s, family gatherings seemed more an obligation than times to be treasured.
How I wish I’d gone. It’s been five years since Grandpa passed away from a sudden illness that confined him to a hospital bed the last month or so of his life. Obviously, divination isn’t one of my family’s gifts – heck, we can’t even bake a decent green-bean casserole – or we’d have known that Christmas was the last we’d have with Grandpa.
As a kid, I certainly didn’t take him for granted. I enjoyed every minute I spent at his home, whether playing outside in the small “house” Grandpa had built for us or staying up late watching old “Twilight Zone” episodes with Grandma while waiting for him to get home from work.
Once I hit the teen years, my grandparents didn’t seem near as exciting as friends and movies and all those fleeting things that seemed so important at the time. Grandpa retired from the factory and they moved to Florida; like Seinfeld says, that’s the law. I wrote letters and called a few times the first couple of years, but even that fizzled out during high school. College came, and I still saw the grands at Christmas and a couple of times each summer, but they didn’t occupy much of my thoughts the rest of the year. I’m sure, however, I was in theirs. I always was, and I’m lucky for that.
So on top of my guilt for missing Grandpa’s last Christmas is, well, more guilt. I neglected them, and Grandpa died without knowing how thankful I am for all he did in my life. Sadly, I can’t even remember the last day I spent with him. The few times we visited we had those arguments-that-aren’t really-arguments, the kind all families have, always about some issue on which I considered myself an expert. I was barely 20 and, back then, considered myself an expert on everything. Then he died.
Funny how, sometimes, God gives you a second chance. In the months following Grandpa’s death, I stumbled across a verse in the New Testament reminding believers to care for the widow and the orphan. If you don’t, the Bible says, you deny your faith and are worse than an unbeliever. That sealed it for me. I tried to make a habit of calling Grandma to check on her, and as often as possible I dropped a check in the mail to help her out. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel I had to do it. I wanted to do it.
A few weeks ago, Grandma’s health necessitated a move on her part. As providence would have it, she found an apartment not even 10 minutes from my house. Of all the family, I’m closest to her, so now I get to see Grandma more than anyone else. And so do my kids, who never fail to bring a smile to her face even when I’m yelling at them not to act like wild animals in her house.
While helping Grandma move in, I was stunned when she mentioned that Grandpa was at the bottom of one particular stack of boxes. She laughed, I realized Grandma found the humor in it, and together we moved his urn to a shelf where “we can all come in and see him and talk to him whenever we want,” she said.
I held back tears as Grandma, smiling, sorted through the remainder of the box. She showed me pictures of Gramps teaching a children’s Sunday School class, then his local preacher’s licenses from the Church of the Nazarene. That was the toughest one for me, because I still haven’t pursued a call to the ministry, something of which I once was so certain. I briefly wondered if Grandpa was disappointed in me for not following in his footsteps.
Grandma, perhaps sensing how I feel this time of year, gave me Grandpa’s old Bible commentaries. She also gave me a couple of his ties. They aren’t the most fashionable, but they bore images of two things in life that he dearly loved: Looney Tunes and the American flag. I was still holding onto them when Grandma pulled out one last item: one of Grandpa’s old button-down shirts. She told me how, in the year after he died, she clung to that shirt, not even washing it for fear that his smell would disappear, and then he’d be gone forever.
Naturally, Grandpa’s warm, husky scent did disappear. And he is gone, though we, of course, believe he’s in heaven. But in those precious moments I shared with Grandma, I realized I do have a small bit of Grandpa left – in Grandma. And she’s certainly not gone. Far from it. She’s just a short drive from my home, anytime I want to stop by and tell her how much I love her. I suppose by doing that as often as I can, I’m giving Gramps the best present he never got from me.
Merry Christmas, Grandpa.
Comments:grills@therant.us
Nice
BTTT
Darn blurry monitor.....
First, your post was credible and to the heart.I'm not easily moved, tears of two medium nearly errupted.What I detect is your overall concern and reverance.Also you are kicking yourself entirely too hard.It would not be correct to put before you another instance,another family,and ways upon excuse turns into missed opportunity.As one becomes older, the missed appropriation of time leads closer to oneself.Actually that was not put at all correct.You did try and successfully did much in care for your own.There was always more,and more and more "could have been done" Not at the expence of your health or Family.This Gent handed you the torch of continuation and never expected you to self destruct over the shared loss.You have done.There is closure.That man must smile down fron Heaven in pride for a gal as you.
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