That's right! I'm back! Are you not overjoyed? Sure you are! [not] ANYWAY. Happy or not to see me.....I'm back.
I had a wonderful Christmas, with lots and lots of family! We even got to take our students with us to Grampa and Gramma's house!! They were awe struck by the house. I love that old house!! That is where Dad was brought home from the hospital when he was first born, and the house to which Mum and Dad first brought baby David and baby Carmella home over 20 years ago! {We had moved away by the time Tiff was born} Lots of memories in that house. It was built before the civil war and was owned by a very rich bachelor. There are two staircases, one for the master and his guests, that is very large and frilly. The other one is steep and dark and dank, that is for the servants and leads to the large servant quarters. These are the rooms my father and his older brothers inhabited when younger. A fact I often find very funny and can not keep myself from laughing!! The house and all it contains are history themselves! My grandmother is not one to throw anything away! She and Grampa grew up during the depression with very poor families. {Grandad is the second or third oldest of seventeen wait no, eighteen children. There was one set of twins, but one twin died making the final tally seventeen. Out of all of those, only a handful remain alive.} While I loved having the family meet once again at the old house, it did come with a bit of a sharp pain. The reason we came back to the old tradition {for as long as I can remember we have gone over there for Christmas day, but when my grandparents got to be in their 80's it became to hard on them to have everyone over at once and Gramma was nearly killing herself with work needed or not. For the past few years we have been having Christmas with our own families and one or two uncles and aunts etc getting together that day} is that Gramma is not sure Grampa will be alive next Christmas. She said since she did not know how many more holidays we all had together, she wanted to have as many of her kids and grandkids together at least one more time before he goes to see his Heavenly Father. I whole heartedly agree, that I want to spend as much time with Grampa as I can before he leaves us...But it is a rather dismal thought during the holiday to be wondering if this is the last time you will all be together like this. I can not imagine what it will do to my family when he makes his long awaited trip Home. While I would like to think that we would be comforted with the thought that life will go on, and that he is finally a place where he can see not only the sons who have gone before him and the brothers and sisters, but also the One he has been faithfully serving for over 85 years. However, Grampa is a huge cornerstone of our family. Even not getting to see him as much as I would love to, there have been many times when making a decision in my life I wonder "Is this right? Would this please the Lord? Would this please my Dad? What about Grampa? What would he think."
It is hard seeing Grampa in the health he is in right now. He is getting more and more forgetful and weak. Grampa has never been weak. This is a man who fought in World War Two in charge of a troupe of tanks, a man who bore the grief of loosing a young son before he turned five. A man who raised seven children to adulthood and then once again, had to give two of his sons back to the Lord as well as a grandson. A man who for years, even now, worked out in a two or three or larger acre garden to make ends meet. He now forgets things and cant remember the names of his kids. I understand that he can not remember my name, that he forgets I am David's daughter and thinks I am Jon's. I was even able to laugh it off when he thought I was calling him on his birthday, from Las Vegas on some vacation, instead of the break room at Meijer that I actually was. But when he forgets that he put his favorite picture of my Gramma back in his wallet, and gets rather frantic thinking he lost it, when he does things like that, when he cant get up off the couch without rocking back and forth to gain his balance. When our first hellos are: Me- "Hi Grampa! How are you?" Him-"Oh good! I have only fallen once this week! Still hurt from that bad fall three months ago though. Don't know if I am going to get over that one." That is scary. What he use to be able to say in two minutes, now takes him ten. He has to first think of what he is going to say, then begin it, then pause as he runs out of breath, then remember where in the sentence he was, then start up again, over and over.....That is hard to watch. I love my Grampa very much, I don't like seeing him that way. Dad is also very close to him. Whenever Grampa has had one of his heart attacks or a major fall or some other health issue, my father has gotten very sick. There are still a few signs that the man I remember is still there in my Grampa!! :) For Christmas this year, I gave him a frame I got while waiting at the bus station in Chicago. It says I heart Grampa. He looked at it and smiled, while holding the stuffed puppy I also got him. {since he did not have toys when he was little, he loves getting them now!} A few moments later, he took it back out of the bag and said "Who was it....{then looking at me} was it you that got me this?" I said "Yes Grampa, that was me." he then nodded with a look I was afraid was him noticing he had once again forgotten something that just happened but then said " Good....." And with a big smile "....Just makin sure I knew which one a you loved me!" THAT is my Grandad!! He is always kidding around! He is a great pastor, a wonderful father, and and excellent granpa, and he does all of it with humor!! I have told Mum before, the day Grampa does not crack a single joke and just sits there, is the day I cry and know that he is gone. Even when relating stories of the horrid war he was in, he always has a bit of humor to share and a moral to the story that is relevant even now. This was the first time I had seen him since coming home from Iowa. He sat there on the couch and said "So how was it watching all those kids?" I told him a bit about it and he replied, "Man, I wish I could have gone to do it for them." {Remember, he is 87 years old. He has had multiple MAJOR heart attacks, has a pace maker, is nearly deaf and blind......and with that said, I continue} "I would have loved to watch all them! That would have been great! I could have done it!" I said "Maybe you could have! But I don't think you would have wanted to do it for six weeks Grampa! That is a long time, with a lot of kids!" "Oh no!" He says, with a very serious tone in his voice, "I could have lasted that long. AND watched 20 kids!!" heh!! THAT is Grampa!! :)
