On losing (and finding) Grandpa

The morning after Grandpa died a colleague of mine casually asked a table of my co-workers if any of us liked apple butter.  Rapidly a smile spread across my face, and I said, “My Grandpa loved apple butter.  He was the only person I know who ate it.  He would have it for breakfast with a glass of prune juice.  He never grew tired of trying to convince me that it was soda so that I would take a drink.  It only worked once, but it became a favorite one of his tricks from that point on.”  I felt no sadness as I recalled this little fact – just surprise at how long it had been since I took the time to remember things like that about Grandpa, and suddenly a list of memories came flooding back…

Memories of buying fudge covered grahams and fudge striped cookies whenever he came to visit us in Chicago.

Memories of slow dancing with him in his living room before I headed off to my Uncle Tom’s wedding – him in his classic white tank top undershirt and me in a white and blue flowered dress with a red pearl necklace.  And him in those same undershirts getting up every morning and doing his swift twist at the waist and stretch as part of his morning exercises. 

I remembered him telling me not to order chicken at Ponderosa because they didn’t specialize in it, and it might not be fresh. 

I thought of the memories of him and Grandma being borderline rude to waitresses because they knew just how they liked things and were not afraid to ask – and the generous tips and friendships with waitresses that followed when they delivered.  They had waitress friends all around St. Louis. 

I remembered how he used to always pay when he took the whole family out to dinner but only after razzing my dad for offering to pay and then forgetting his wallet.  For the record, I think my dad only did that once, but Grandpa and I got years of entertainment out of reminding him of it. 

Memories came back of Grandpa’s stern voice that made him sound just a little more menacing than my dad so that he commanded our respect.  He was a little more set in the traditional gender roles so that despite his small stature he came to represent masculinity to me in a similar way that my Grandma represented femininity.  So set were they in their gender roles that as Grandma became sick and he had to do a lot more of the work around the house, he didn’t even know you were supposed to use detergent when you did a load of laundry.  And one day when left in charge of caring for me he took me to McDonald’s for breakfast and lunch because cooking just wasn’t his thing. 

As I remembered our giddiness over those two trips to McDonald’s I thought of another trip to McDonald’s in Tennessee with Uncle Dave where Uncle Dave just wanted a Quarter Pounder without cheese and the trouble they had to go through to get it and the ceaseless teasing of the employee when she told them they should have asked for a Quarter Ham which immediately fueled the fire for the shows he and Dave loved to put on.  These usually ended with Grandpa looking on with his big yet somewhat silent laughter as her put his hand on his belly.  He cried in a similar way to his laughing – somewhat frequent and somewhat silent as he was moved to both kinds of emotions with those he loved. 

I remembered the woman in his life trying to get his hand out of the cookie jar, the MnM’s bag or even the bushel of pistachios at Schnucks but how he would return for another bite regardless and how he would later conspire with my girls to sneak them treats in the same way.  In fact, when he lay in the hospital bed in my parents dining room just a week and a half ago, Maggie kept running into the room and yelling, “Papa!  Nack?  Nack?” 

I remembered The Duck Tape, and playing with a bouncy ball at the Botanical Gardens, and “Shut that Kid Up!” on the Hill in St. Louis, and oohing and ahhing at fireworks and driving 55 miles an hour on Highway 40 after taking me to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Fox on a school Night – and I was so appreciative but soooo tired and I just wanted him to go a little faster, and I remembered how he wanted to run for school board and make science optional, and eating Salisbury steak on an airplane with him as he bravely flew Jason and I across the country to California when we were still practically toddler, and so so many more…

And these stories helped me learn about my love for my Grandpa – I realized how all these stories showed his intense desire for routine, his extreme desire for practicality and his intense generosity towards those he loved, both in physical things (I remembered how he would tell you what he was giving you as if it was an order, “Dani!  I am buying the baby a dresser and that’s that) and more importantly his generosity through time, love, and laughter.  He got so much pleasure taking care of anyone he loved. 

And as these memories flooded back to me I realized how we have been living in limbo for so long as Grandpa’s dementia worsened – in limbo between enjoying Grandpa in his fullness and enjoying the memories in their fullness.  This is not to say that were not good times these past few years – you will see in pictures that there were birthday cakes and meeting babies and smiles – but Grandpa was slowly becoming a little more lost… a little less like the Grandpa in these stories.  Though part of us will always long for the tangibleness of worldly bodies for the souls we love, losing Grandpa has shown me that sometimes a person’s passing allows us to embrace their soul even more.  As Grandpa’s mind began to leave him his body simply asked to follow suit.  In one of our recent conversations he told me he loved me and then asked if the house had been shut down so he could go to sleep.  When I told him that the lights were out and the doors were locked so he could go to sleep, he asked if I would get some sleep too and then drifted off peacefully.  This past week, as he entered eternal slumber, he became whole to me again, and I realized how whole our love for him has been and how whole is love for us.