Grandpa

Memories of my grandfather keep popping into my head, flooding my mind and asking not to be forgotten.

I was never happier to walk 6 miles in my life.  Taking him dinner... Fish and Chips.

Ovaltine at night and how he could drink coffee before bed and still sleep soundly, enough to snore like a train coming through the bedroom walls.

Musli for breakfast. I tried it once... I didn’t understand how he could manage all the cardboard flavors and various textures in one cereal bowl.

The time we went to Bass lake, just me and him and grandma and making a sail boat out of drift wood. The poem I wrote about it that my teacher put on the wall.

Swimming at the Hampton house and grandmas suit on inside out.

His voice. Perfect English.

His beard.

His Stability. The fact I knew where everything was going to be and what he would be wearing even before he went blind and could not change anything.

His cravat (neck ties) he would wear and hankies he would use that were worn thin.

How he served during WWII in intelligences and would sneak out to call grandma on the “company” phone they weren’t supposed to use for personal calls, yet everyone did...

His love of football...  Magnifying glass and two pairs of glasses on with his nose on top of the T.V. just to catch the plays...

The year I turned 19 I went to see my Grandpa. I kept a picture of us by my bed from that visit once I came home. We went to a Thai restaurant on the beachfront with Uncle Brian and Aunt Erica and I had too much wine, so I swooned when I stood up to go to the bathroom. I was embarrassed and remembered thinking I’m glad Grandpa can’t see right now. That was the only time I ever thought that.

Secretly I think he could see better than we thought, he always caught the smallest speck on the floor or asked us about something across the room we didn’t even notice. I think his macular degeneration just gave him a different kind of perspective on the world.

England meant Grandpa. He was all that England is... to me.

He was proper, regal, witty, clever, stylish (okay, so grandpa wore the same thing for 70 years, but it was classic), never changing, old fashioned, loyal to his football as much as to his country.....

Before Grandma died, I always noticed that when we’d enter the room to greet him and Grandma was with us he would stand to greet the women; my mother, my grandmother, and me.  It made me feel respected and special even though I knew he did that for his wife more than anyone else and I was only 6 years old, but I was still a lady.




(I wrote this shortly after my grandfather passed away in March 2011... I have not read it since then, but decided to post as is. I guess I thought I might add to it, but  2 years later now I like how it ended...)