I never thought I would find myself in a world without Grandpas...It's a weird notion...and I never thought about it. I took for granted the fact that mine and Antonio's parents had us at early ages...and that we were having our children early and that they would be surrounded by grandparents and so much more love than they would get from us. Wow... I couldn't have BEEN more wrong. Just added it to the laundry list of things I have been wrong about and moved on... When I grew up, I had my pop's dad, my mom's mom and her third husband who I lovingly referred to as Grandpa Davy and my mom's dad was more like a watermark on our lives because his wife was bat-chit crazy mang.
When my mom got remarried, even though I could have cared less for the man, I really liked his parents. I loved is parents...they were my grandparents. I loved how his mom insisted on getting everyone's addresses in line at the grocery store. I thought it was ridiculous, but I really loved it. It screamed the time she came from. My Grandma Mary was very progressive and very few things came from her as a shadow of the past. She wouldn't step foot oustside in her housecoat and she wouldn't receive guests without filling them food...other than that, she had some very progressive thoughts. Loved it. I had sooo much grandparent love it was ridiculous. I even remember telling Grandma Mary that... I was happy I had so much multigenerational experience to fall back on. And of all things that I wanted for my children that I did or didn't have as a child... they won't have that. They have their grandma's. That's it. As of probably this weekend, they will be in a world without Grandpa's. My pop was taken from us when I was 22... Yeah, I had him for a while...but I wasn't done with him yet.
Luckily, I had an awesome fiancee (husband now) and his family was awesome... I thought, I know that if I ever needed anything in the dad realm, I could call my future father in law in an instant and he would drop what he was doing to help me. So, I said goodbye to my pop and figured that you just can't have too many good things in life and someone decided before the levee broke that something had to go... And now, my beloved father in law is talking to his wife about taking him off life support because he is ready to leave behind his disease riddled body.
My daughters, Thing 1 and Thing 2, are in very different positions... Thing 1 is 6 and a half and can remember all the times she spent Friday and Saturday at Grandpa and Grandma's and spent all day Friday with Grandpa cause Grandma works and all day Saturday with Grandma cause she needed to get her time in before Mom and Dad (which am us) came to scoop her up. She is in a difficult position because she loves her Grandpa and doesn't want him to go. Thing 2 on the other hand will never know her Grandpa and will only hear the story about how he held on as long as he could to see her born and feel her soft little feet on his cheek because he couldn't hold her hand.
When one door opens, a window closes and so forth... I can checkerboard a pattern proof of this in my life. So I can't be too surprised... I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop because it always does. I don't necessarily lead my life in a manner expecting the worst...but I am always prepared for it for the most part. I know life can't go on perfectly, so I am not terribly dissappointed all the time when things don't go my way. Pleasantly surprised is always a good way to be... and particularly bummed is a common occurence. Fine. I can deal with that.
But when I can't deal with it...I get my hair done...Or I polish my nails. Or change the laces in my shoes. It's these small things in life that I CAN control completely that help me get through the organized chaos of my life.
Meanwhile, here I sit, work completely done waiting for a phone call from my sweet sweet partner in life who hasn't dealt with this at all and will definitely need someone at his side when it does...because it will...and it'll hit the poor guy like a ton of fuckin bricks. And that is why I am here, I am here to catch him when he falls... I feel damned lucky that I GET to catch him when he falls. That's why I'm his wife :)
On a completely different note: did you know that you can find Transformers the original cartoon on at 4am?
Love you Ash.....
ReplyDelete