Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

My Grandfather passed away yesterday.

It wasn't the first time I had lost someone close to me. It wasn't even much of a shock to any of us, only because he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease over 12 years ago and had been declining for some time now. He had been in the care home he passed on in for almost 11 years. What was most difficult is a toss up between the raw emotion of seeing someone you care about taking their last breath and the way my Grandmother reacted when she finally let go just before it happened. Every day, for those 10 1/2 years, she went down to the home to wash him, feed him, hold his hand, turn him, kiss him, and fall in love all over again with him. Its hard to remember another life for her.

But there IS some memory of my Grandfather before the disease took over...before my Grandmother had to dead bolt the doors so we wouldn't find my Grandfather miles away walking down the streets of Erie again, before she had to switch the faucets in the kitchen to turn backwards because he kept turning them off and on, before he forgot my name, before he forgot HIS name. I remember when I was 8 or 9, my Grandparents used to take my little brother, JR, and I to the dock to feed the ducks every Sunday after church. Yes, I DID once go to church and actually enjoyed it. But thinking back, maybe I had liked hanging out with my Grandparents in any aspect. I'm pretty sure they have always loved me, used to take care of me any chance they could get and for that I am grateful because out of all the cousins, I think JR and I knew my Grandfather the best. He was always joking around the way those grandfathers on the Hallmark commercials do. He would pretend to "steal my nose" and sometimes I believed his thumb really WAS my nose in his fist. He also would always tell me to sing "Far Far Away" and when I asked him what song that was he would just laugh. He would pretend he was asleep and when I would get really close to him napping in the chair, he would jump and scare the hell out of me, almost every time. I remember his gold sedan. I remember his five o'clock shadow. I remember he snickered more than he laughed. I remember he was happy once.

He loved children and having three sons of his own, he was really excited when I came along. I was the first girl on my Dad's side of the family (complicated because my older sisters were from my mother's previous marriage). He would always tell me I was his favorite granddaughter. "But Papa, I'm your ONLY granddaughter."

Next February, my Grandparents would have been married 60 years. When they met, it wasn't soon after that they decided to wed. My Grandmother went above her parents and lied about her young age when they applied for the license. They had three sons, nine grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and I can see a bit of my Grandparents in almost every one of us.

The most amazing thing might be that the home my Grandmother took care of my Grandfather in, men came and went and not one man had a wife that cared for him, watched over him, day in and day out, the way my Grandmother cared for my "Papa". But there was only so much she could do. He was finally ready to rest. He didn't give in or give up. He gave way for a new chapter in my Grandmother's life. He gave her a few more years of health and happiness to enjoy on her own. He gave a present she's too modest or selfless to put on any list. He let her go.