Grandpa

My Grandpa made the best popcorn. It took him minutes and he didn't have to think about it at all, but that's the way it is with a gift.

Making popcorn was only one of Grandpa's gifts. He made depressing things ok, and even funny. We would go to pick blueberries at the end of the season when they were almost gone. After an hour or so one evening, Grandpa said, "Nobody should have to suffer like this." One year - many years - it rained so much in the spring our corn got flooded and only came up in places. "No corn," Grandpa said, and I laughed, because it was ok. 

He called my cat "big fat old ugly kitty" and he called my rabbits "levites." He called my mom "Nance" and my cousin "Mary Belle." He called me "Brown Eyes" and "Little Girl." He thought I drove too fast, but he still taught me how when I bought my first truck. He loved Little House on the Prairie, but he wouldn't let us watch M*A*S*H, which came on afterward. 

Sadie and Molly and I would go to the Church of God with Grandma and Grandpa some Sundays in the summer. When Grandpa got bored during the sermon, he drew pictures on the bulletin. He drew my cat Oliver inside a wishing well. He drew a "dead apple tree," and he wrote about how Bill Grogan's goat was tied to the railroad tracks after eating three shirts off the line.

These are only my memories - I had him for nineteen years. I didn't deserve to have him. That's the way it is with a gift.

******

It's very hard to sit in that church without Grandpa.

The hardest part was the singing. He loved our singing. He loved people. He loved all of us, and love makes me cry. I think of that night with all of us in the hospital around him, singing, soaking up borrowed time. That time was sweeter than any I have ever spent with my family because of it. He gave that time to us and He made it enough. That's the way it is with a gift.

******

If I close my eyes, he's there, all dressed up in flannels to go into the blackberry patch. He's stacking wood, making sure the ends are just right. He's sitting out there in my audience, clapping for my sisters and me. He's pitting cherries at the dining room table making jokes about breaking teeth on cherry pits. He's walking across the parking lot carrying pies down to the stand. 

I miss you, Grandpa, and I can't wait to see you again.