On September 18, my Grandpa Street celebrated his 81st birthday.
My mom organized a potluck birthday lunch, complete with balloons and birthday cake, and invited our immediate family (including my uncle, aunt, and a cousin), my grandpa’s siblings and their spouses, cousins, and a couple friends. Dad was there and Grandma, too. My sister, Staci, her husband, and her daughter, and I all drove down from Indianapolis.
We had some of Grandpa’s favorites: his sister’s homemade noodles, my grandma’s deviled eggs, watermelon, and bread. We sang “Happy Birthday” and took pictures. My niece, Camille, ran around the small activity room, playing and squealing like any active 17-month-old.
Grandpa, however, didn’t really know what was going on, or that he was one year older. Alzheimer’s disease is stealing him slowly every day, and that afternoon his awareness was minimal.
I miss my grandpa. Now, granted, I’ve not lived in the same city as him for years. But I miss calling him on the phone and simply talking about my day or just life, in general. I miss so many things. Hearing him tell me about the walk he took on a sunny afternoon. Or how tasty the watermelon was that he’d just cut up.
I [will] miss his call every March 15, accompanied by the song, “Happy Birthday,” which was usually off-key. (He called me this year but at someone’s reminder.) I miss his chocolate fudge he’s always made at Christmastime. And his fried potatoes that he’d cook with biscuits and gravy, a meal I often requested when I’d travel back home to Vincennes for a weekend visit.
I miss the physical strength of a man who now weighs less than me. I miss him telling me what the doctor said to him when I was born (his oldest grandchild). (“The birth of a baby, isn’t it a marvelous thing?”) And trips to an Amish restaurant in a nearby town. Mostly, I just miss my grandpa: the man who taught me how to drive in the local cemetery before I turned 16, the man I traveled to Florida with on a family vacation in 1991, the man who loved to fish on the Wabash River, the man who let me “do” his hair when I was little, the one who loved to talk about the St. Louis Cardinals, the one who has helped me buy each of my cars, the one who would sit and talk, telling memories from his years of growing up on a farm and without his dad, who died when he was just a sophomore in high school.
Gone is the man I’ve known and loved for 31 years. He is still here on this earth, but, then again, he’s not. This new “season” in our family is just flat out hard.
GP, as we like to call him, has had a saying for years. When I asked, “How are you doing, Grandpa?” his response would be “every day you’re living is a good day.” Just recently, even at the nursing home, he said that phrase to my mom. In the same visit he uttered those words, he called her “daughter” . . . and soon after, he was “gone.” Confused again. Somewhere else besides the present.
His life has been full and rich, one marked by hard work, health problems, and sacrifice. My GP placed his faith in Jesus in 1991, and he still talks about that day when God changed his life. He is my grandpa, a man whom I’ve respected, adored, and loved . . . and still respect, adore, and love, even though the latter years of his life had been tainted by this heart-wrenching .disease.
Every day he’s living is still a good one. All the while, though, I wait till Jesus takes him home to be with Him, where Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t exist.
This is absolutely beautiful, Tricia. Loved reading the memories you captured with your GP, and being able to better picture your unique relationship. Beautiful writing, friend.