Remembering Gramp

Nine years ago tonight, my gramp passed away. His death wasn’t a surprise; he’d been transferred from the hospital to the nursing home only days earlier, and he was barely cognizant anymore. It still didn’t make it any easier.

My gramp was a pretty amazing guy. He and my grandmother had just celebrated their 60^th wedding anniversary not long before; he was a veteran and a retired police detective and a man who was well loved and fondly remembered in the community he’d lived in his whole life.

When I think of him, I remember his full head of white hair, the twinkle in his eye before he started trouble with my grandma for our benefit, the way he arranged his food so everything on his plate looked like it belonged in a magazine before he could eat it. He drank coffee with anisette at our house every morning and played 45s with my brother and I and told the story of his friend Nick Maluff and his brazen dog repeatedly. He read the newspaper from cover to cover every single day, and when he was done he watched the news in case he had missed anything. He used to sit through “concerts” where I would regale him with the songs I’d been practicing on the piano that week, and he’d patiently watch as I prepared my Solid Gold dance routine for when I was asked to join the famous dancers. He encouraged me in everything I did.

As I got older, we had a complicated relationship, largely due to my mother and her influence over him. Even during that time, I believe he still saw me as a person he admired and rooted for. We talked about it some before he died, and he told me he knew I’d done my best. That meant everything to me.

A lot has changed in my life since I last saw him, and I wonder if he’d be proud of me now, if he was still here. But I don’t really have to wonder. I know he’s still near me, and I’d like to think he will be through everything else I do – like my first book signings, when I know I’ll need the support. I don’t go to his grave much, but I don’t feel like I need to. He’s with me already, in my heart, where he should be. Where he’ll always be.