Goodbye Grandpa (1/2 column)

This Christmas may be one that stands out in my family’s memory. It’s not because of my sister being home from the military the first time since she joined, or because of the 10-plus inches of snow we’ve received.
Instead, this holiday season appears to be the one that will go down in family history as the one when we lost Grandpa.
My grandpa, who turned 93 last March, has been in assisted living and nursing homes for several years now. I have to admit, I haven’t been the world’s best granddaughter in making sure I visited him every time I was home. I guess it’s just that I’d like to remember him as he was during my childhood instead of the last few years.
I’ve always thought of my grandpa as a quiet man. When my mom and dad were busy on the farm, we spent a lot of time just down the road at their home. My grandma was a charateristic ‘50s wife. She had been a school teacher before she married my grandpa, but then spent the majority of her life taking care of her family.
Grandma had a weekly schedule: laundry, ironing, cleaning, etc. One chore for each day of the week. My favorite day to visit was Friday, which was baking day. I think this was also my grandpa’s favorite day too. He was known for his sweet tooth, as well as his love of picking berries.
While Grandma ran the house, Grandpa ran the farm. While we were there, he was usually out in the barn or on a tractor. When he was inside in the evening or over lunch on the colder days, he spent most of the time on an old brown couch in the dining room. Beside it he kept an end table so full of farm magazines I was amazed it never collapsed.
If he wasn’t reading, Grandpa was catching a quick snooze. I don’t remember him ever listening to the radio or watching TV. In fact, I don’t remember my grandpa ever spending time in the living room except for after Christmas dinner when we opened presents.
Christmas shopping for Grandpa was never hard. A new pair of bib overalls, a few flannel shirts and packages of Hersey’s candy bars were enough to satisfy him. In the last few years, I’ve given him a new picture of Jacob, which I found proudly displayed in his room when I visited.
When my grandma passed away in 2001, Grandpa took it very hard. It was then I learned how my grandparents met, a story fit for a Nicholas Sparks novel. My grandma had been hired as the teacher at the one-room country school house just down the road from my grandpa’s farm. As was custom then, the teacher boarded with a family, which happened to be my great-grandparents. The two became friends. When my grandma took another job farther away, my grandpa went after her and somehow convinced her to marry him.
“Best thing I ever did,” he said.
My mom called to tell me before Christmas to say he had been taken to the hospital early that morning. He had a badly bleeding stomach ulcer, but was too weak to survive surgery. At 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning (Dec. 22), a nurse called to say he was not likely to survive past mid-day. But, he proved stronger than they thought. By Christmas Eve he was well enough to be released from the hospital. However, trauma and age had taken its toll, and Grandpa passed away Saturday morning.
It makes me smile knowing he and Grandma are back together again.