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Gramps
When I was 7 years old, I had to make two decisions. I had to make more than two, obviously, but the year I was seven there were only two important decisions that I had to make. Decision #1: To live with mom or to live with Dad. Decision #2: To stay in public school, transfer to the private school up the street, or transfer to the private school across town where my grandmother was the secretary. I �chose� (and I do use the term lightly here, as I am pretty certain that the decision had already been made for me) to live with my mom and I chose to go to the private school across town where my Gram was the secretary. Because of these decisions, from the very first day of First grade until the very last day of my senior year of high school, my grandpa made me breakfast almost every single school day morning. To this day I contend that my Gramps makes the best fried eggs, the best pancakes, the best blueberry muffins, the best french toast and even the best oatmeal in the entire world. On occasion there would be a cereal day and even back then I thought there was something magical about the cereal at my grandparents house because it simply just tasted so much better than the cereal we had at home. It wasn�t until several years later when I was living on my own that I discovered the secret ingredient to good serial was my grandparents 2% milk as opposed to the Skim we always had at home. For 12 years of my life I spent almost every morning with my Gramps, sitting across the table from each other and reading the newspaper in companionable silence. Occasionally he would point out particularly funny comics in the Variety section (which was my morning reading of choice) or he�d tease me about whatever it was fashionable to tease me about at that point in my life. On rainy or snowy or extra cold days he would drive me to school, and if I forgot my lunch or my gym shorts or the homework I�d been hastily trying to finish that morning, he wouldn�t hesitate to run it out to me. He was, in many ways, like a dad to me, only he was better than a dad because he wasn�t my dad and therefore I can�t ever remember a time when my Gramps punished me. I only remember the giving�almost constant giving. I didn�t see nearly as much of my grandparents after high school, and I saw even less of them when I moved to North Carolina. They came to visit the family out there a couple of times a year so I�d have one or two quality days with them and then I�d be back off spinning out of control in an environment that never let me get comfortable. This was okay though. We needed that. I needed to go out and spread my wings and to my family�s greatest credit, they knew that I needed to do it. So I did it. And then I got tired of it. So I moved home. Life moves in cycles. I�ve recognized it before, mostly in my relationships (and how they all seem to follow the same pattern). Here it was clearly pronounced. When I moved back to Minnesota, I took a job at the Mayo Clinic, which happens to be just 5 blocks from my grandparents house. We agreed that it would be okay for me to park in their driveway and walk to work from their house. While I can no longer drag myself out of bed early enough to make it there for breakfast (and with both of them retired they often aren�t even awake by the time I am leaving for work), I do stop in every day after work and at least a couple of times a week my Gramps will have dinner waiting for me. Often, if he doesn�t have dinner waiting for me, he will have bought me some groceries to take home or some table scraps for Oliver. We�ve come full circle, and Gramps is still giving. A couple of nights ago my Gramps began having heart trouble. He has a history of it � he had his first heart attack the day before my mom married my dad (some 26 years ago) and has had a pacemaker and defibulator in his heart for the better part of the last 10 years. His defibulator went off on Saturday night and he passed out on the floor at home. Typical of my grandpa, he came to on the floor and didn�t tell my Gram what had happened until almost an hour later. They rushed him to the hospital and he�s been there ever since. I visited him after work yesterday and he seemed fine, if a bit tired. He was sitting up in bed, making jokes, laughing and generally enjoying his company. They brought him his dinner and he sat patiently until we figured out where we were going to dinner � then we said goodnight and left to grab some food of our own. I had been home not more than a half hour when my mom called, sobbing, to tell me that Gramps had been having very severe shocks with his defibulator. She said they were so strong that he would cry out in pain, and that they were transferring him to the ICU. The family tearfully made their way back to the hospital where we spent some time waiting and crying in the family waiting room. Gramps pulled through last night, by the time we were allowed in to see him he was again laughing and joking and telling us he was going to be fine, doing what he could to put a happy face on things. Trying to make us feel better. Still�giving. So � my head and my heart are in the ICU ward with him today, even if my body is stuck here pretending to work. |
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