soopageek

Some of you may have noticed that I briefly posted about going to NYC this weekend then removed it. That's because I found out that my grandfather passed away yesterday. It turns out that being layed over in Baltimore all this time was a blessing in disguise. He lived in Richmond, VA and my company is going to allow me to take the truck down there and be with my family for the funeral. I had actually thought about stopping in Richmond on my way through there Wednesday but decided not to because I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get into Maryland with the blizzard. In hindsight, with the customer being closed on Thursday anyway, I could've spent some time with him in those last couple of days he had. Talk about feeling like shit. Hindsight being what it is, I'm trying not to be too hard myself for that.

I am thankful that wefly and I made the trip to see him last Labor Day Weekend and that she got a chance to meet him. That weekend Granddaddy had seemed mostly bitter and resigned. It's understandable I suppose. I can't even imagine what it must be like to be 89 and still have a sharpness of mind like he had but a continuously deteriorating body due to advanced age; being hard of hearing and blind in one eye, plus severely limited mobility. It has to take itss toll on the psyche. He spent most of the weekend either napping or watching the Game Show network, unable or uninterested in trying to engage us. On the Sunday of that weekend, however, he stubbornly crept onto the back porch with his walker and sat with us and his wife Lucy and joined in the conversation. He even laughed a few times, that distinctive laugh of his that I had been missing. After a while he said, "Who wants ice cream?" We all soon piled into the car and went for ice cream down the street at Bruester's. That day would end up being my final memory of him, and probably the one that will always come to mind first when I think of him: the four of us in a car on a beautiful Virginia Sunday afternoon, him sitting in the passenger seat with the dog in his lap while we went for ice cream.



I love you Grandaddy, and I'll miss you.