Grandpa: Part 2

~Friday, January 18~

 

The alarm woke me up around 2:30 a.m. I think I only got about 2 hours of sleep. But it was time to get up and ready so that we’d be on time for our flight.

 

We left our room around 3:15 a.m. and headed down to catch the 3:35 a.m. shuttle to the airport.

We rode the shuttle to the airport and had to wait until 4:00 a.m. to check in (that’s when the counters opened.) Thankfully the check-in process went well and no one was stalled going through security.

 

We made it to our gate with plenty of time before our 5:35 a.m. flight. It was a pretty quiet flight to Detroit. I dozed a little bit and watched the sunrise.

 

In Detroit we had to change concourses to catch our connecting flight. We only had about an hour layover, so we tried to move quickly. We finally found the right gate and started to settle in to wait. Some of us were discussing walking over to a different concourse to get something to eat at Starbucks. Over the PA system we hear an announcement that our gate had changed. Instead of C7, we were now at C36. Yes, that’s all the way at the other end of the building. We were running out of time so we quickly walked over to the gate. It was so crowded that we had to stand and wait for the flight.

 

By that time it was getting too close to boarding time to find anything to eat. So we munched on the snacks we had packed and waited. If we had known that they would delay boarding by 20 minutes we would have gotten something, but that’s life.

 

The flight to Pennsylvania was very short. We barely had time to get up in the air before we were descending again.

 

We collected our bags at the airport and waited for Dad and Aunt Debbie to pick us up.

Once they got there we had quite an emotional reunion. Grandpa’s death has been extremely difficult for them to handle. I have never seen both of them cry as often as I did that week. In a way it’s good because it means they loved their Daddy a whole lot. In another way it made it much harder for the rest of us to watch their pain.

 

We picked up our rental mini-van and drove out to the house. That’s when it really began to sink in. There was no Grandpa there to greet us. We used to have a little joke about going over to his oxygen machine and following the cord to find him.

 

I walked around to each of the rooms, just looking. He really wasn’t there. Several of us broke down. It was just so hard to be in that empty house where we spent countless hours of our childhood visiting with Grandma and Grandpa.

 

I walked down to my Grandpa’s workshop in the basement. I can’t believe he will never work down there again; never pick up another tool; never wear that blue coat.

We fixed ourselves some lunch while Dad and Aunt Debbie went out to deal with some of the banking issues. We quickly learned that there are myriads of logistics surrounding the death of a loved one.

 

While they ran errands, we went over to visit Grandma. She was pretty unresponsive that day. She opened her eyes once or twice, but other than that she didn’t respond. Parkinson’s is such a difficult disease to deal with. So often I believe that Grandma can hear us, but it’s physically too hard to respond. I just wish I knew what was going on in her mind, how she is processing all of this.

 

Even though she didn’t speak until the end (when she whispered “I love you” to each of us as we hugged her goodbye) we stayed for about an hour and just talked with her.

 

When we returned home we ordered pizza for dinner. We received word that our cousins (who were driving up from Florida) would be arriving soon and that Dad and Aunt Debbie were on their way home. They had been trying desperately to get access to the safety deposit box my Grandpa had. As my Grandpa had lost weight, his wedding band no longer fit. They couldn’t find the ring anywhere in the house and figured he had put it in the box for safe keeping.

 

But there are a lot of rules about who can access a safety deposit box, and they had to jump through a lot of hoops to finally get into the box at 5:50 p.m. on a Friday night. We were so grateful that they found the rings and that they were able to retrieve them in time for the funeral Monday morning.

 

That evening we enjoyed visiting with our cousins, but it was very bittersweet. Grandpa’s spot at the head of the table sat noticeably vacant. He will never get to enjoy a family dinner with us again, this side of heaven. For a man who was so quiet and reserved, his absence has left an empty, gaping hole in our hearts.

 

To be continued. . .