I unexpectingly find myself back home in California this week. I made the decision abruptly to come and spend some time with my grandparents. They are 92 years young and until the last year or so have been the picture of health. My grandfather has made a steep decline and is not long for this world. He is at home with hospice care and is in the process of shutting down. One thing that I should mention is what a HUGE part my grandparents have played in my life. They have always lived within one mile of us. We saw them every day. They were there from the first day my parents brought me home from the adoption agency. They came to every school play, every swim meet. They said I could be whatever I wanted to be. While my parents were critical, they told me I was perfect.
I was nervous to see my grandad. To see his deterioration would be to admit that he would soon be leaving me. In Texas it was easy to keep my visual memory of him restricted to his past self, ignoring the present. But I think that I had overprepared myself because he looked better than what my imagination had conjured. I was afraid he would not know who I was because I had been warned by family that it would be likely, but he knew me right away and he closed his eyes tightly and began to tear up. He talked about how good it was that I had come and how much he loved me and his family. All of his life grandad was NOT effusive. He had never said he loved me. He was not physically affectionate. He was a military man through and through. But his actions showed every day how he felt and the fact that he now has words to match them makes little difference.
At about 7:00 tonight my grandfather passed. It is so hard to say goodbye.
Sam and Elmer on Mother's Day 2007
