So this year has been pretty good as far as the “normal” stuff goes, unfortunately it was all offset by the deaths of 3 grandparents within 11 weeks of each other. My paternal grandmother “Granny Lucy” passed away on January 29. Even though it was a surprising phone call at 12:30AM, looking back it was kind of a relief because we had always figured she would be back in the hospital again for an extended period. fighting as she’s been doing for over 15 years now between heart problems, cancer, multiple clots, and various other problems. She went peacefully in the middle of the night.
One week later my maternal grandfather “Papa” passed. His was no surprise as he had been in hospice for 3 weeks, they were about ready to kick him out even because he improved a bit. When I got the call a week before in the middle of the night about my grandmother I had actually thought it was for him. He was a tough guy, retired Air Force, wrote his own obit even, hilarious to the end.
Since my grandmother passed, my other grandfather “Ganky” just wasn’t the same. They had been married for 67 years, unheard of these days. Every day of his life for the last 67 years he had gotten up and there she was, then all of a sudden she wasn’t there. He had been working on one last project for a company that he bought in the late 70′s and built up but had mostly retired from. It kept him busy, his mind was occupied at least with it, and he had somewhere to go every day instead of sitting in an empty house. He still got Kellie, had even started keeping her on Friday nights like he did me most of my youth. Kellie had been the light of his life for the last 5+ years and we had hoped she would help, even just a little, in fixing his hurt.
We had already made plans for him to keep Kellie Easter weekend, it was Kriss’ 20 year reunion weekend with events on Friday and Saturday. Easter Sunday we were going to pick her up but he called and said he promised to take her to Captain Joes, a local seafood joint in Midway, GA, where she always liked to eat shrimp and get dessert off the salad bar. We were a little miffed because we were supposed to be at some other family’s house for lunch but instead we met them there and had lunch together. When we left we were trying to get back to Savannah to eat a second lunch and told him we’d come back by his house to pick up Kellie’s stuff, he lived just 5 miles from us, which we did later that evening. I went inside to get her bag while everyone else stayed in the car and we didn’t stay at all. That was the last time I saw my grandfather.
Looking back now I see that he just wasn’t the same that Sunday. Usually he is all smiles with Kellie, but that Easter day he was just kind of blah. I’m glad we spent that time together at lunch. He went on April 15, died of a broken heart. Tax day will always be a day I remember, it changed the whole rest of my life.
