I'm sitting in this dark, quiet apartment on a not too chilly (and by that I mean 31 degrees) Friday night and I'm really enjoying being alone right now. I'm all cozied up under a blanket, my tummy is full of a random assortment of food (a slice of sourdough bread, string cheese, three strips of turkey bacon, apple juice, veggie straws, and cornbread), and I'm completely content. I had a really good week at work and am so thankful to have not only a job, but one that I actually enjoy.
On a personal life level, this week had a somber though not so unexpected event in the middle of it. On Tuesday morning my Grandpa Felix died after his recent illness. As I said in my last post, we knew that given his state it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened and while I'm sad to lose my grandpa, my last remaining grandparent on my mom's side, I am relieved in knowing that he is no longer in any pain. Boyfriend and I will be flying home next weekend for the services. This is yet another example of just one of the billion ways in which Boyfriend is amazing. When he found out my grandpa was ill, he told me he wanted to be there for me when it was time to go to the funeral. And he has kept true to his word. Next Saturday, at the very crack of dawn at 7:15, Boyfriend and I are California bound. It's going to be a busy weekend but I'm looking forward to seeing my loved ones and also introducing them all to Boyfriend. It definitely has been odd being in a serious relationship where only two of my friends (and none of my family) have met him, but due to the 2,000+ mile distance, it's not like it's been possible before now.
My grandpa dying reminded me of when we lost my grandma, his wife, nearly 14 years ago. When I put a number to the actual amount of time that she's been gone I was slightly shocked that it's already been that long. It also made me sad at the amount of time my grandpa had been alone, having outlived his wife by over a decade. I spent a good chunk of my childhood, approximately ages 5-11, living less than half a mile away from them and my mom, sister, and I frequented their house almost daily, or at least what felt like daily. Most of my memories of my grandpa are set in their house there at the now defunct Shore Acres Motel. By the time my brain was capable of forming its earliest memories, the motel was already closed and my grandparents lived there in the main house as the caretakers.
The motel was set on five acres of lake front property and it provided quite the playground for me and my sister and occasionally my cousins too. There was a shuffleboard (maybe? I can't quite remember) court that was a smooth concrete slab ideal for bikes and skates and the like. There was an old, creepy pool house with a drained pool that only held green, stagnant puddles of water that formed after the rain that were fun to skip old dates into. There were tons of fruit and nut trees: oranges, grapefruit, apricot, dates, walnuts, pecans. We used to pick the fruit and throw it at each other. My grandpa would later find it as he putted around the property on his golf cart and then yell at us to "Quit pickin' the fruit, goddamnit!" Goddamnit is actually the word I heard most frequently out of my grandpa's Texan mouth. I didn't even realize it was less than desirable language until later in my life because it was such a main staple in my grandparents' house. "Goddamnit, Mommy" is actually the phrase I associate with my grandpa, Mommy being my grandma. Some other phrases of his that I remember are: "I'm headed home to grab a biscuit", meaning he was going home for lunch, and "Don't make no difference", which surprisingly never bothered me considering it was a double negative :P
Some other things I associate with my grandpa are:
Dr. Pepper
Old trucker hats that sat on top of his head instead of pulled down
(That's not my grandpa, just a picture of a man who wore his hat the same way :P)
His use of the huge VHS camcorder that sat either on his shoulder or a tripod in the corner to record events like family reunions
Baseball on the TV that he always had on but never really seemed to pay attention to
The Heat for the Seat paddle he kept above the front door and always threatened to use but never did
His old blue Chevy truck with the camper shell full of tools and gadgets that smelled to me like a mix of walnut hulls and grease
(This also isn't my grandpa but it's the only Google Image search return of a blue chevy pick-up with a camper shell)
Cowboy boots that usually had one or both pant legs stuck on top of them instead of over them
It's been quite a few years since I had a conversation with my grandpa where he actually knew who I was. His Alzheimer's caused him to lose the ability to remember who we all were. But I remember who he was. And I'll miss him.
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