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Sunday, January 14, 2007

Sunday evenings...

This came up in a conversation the other day, and I figured it was worth preserving, since I've never really written about this whole series of events before.

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Right out of high school, instead of going off to college as I should've done, I opted to head south to immerse myself in the Texas half of my family as part escaping the nest and part 'I'm a jackass who doesn't know what he wants to do yet' move.

(my father's entire family has lived in Texas for generations, all the way back to the Alamo days, so I'm told)

So, spending the summer there with my grandparents and aunt & uncle, taking in all the new and unusual perspectives that I hadn't been exposed to was quite an adventure. Not all fun and games, however, as both my grandfather (known to all as "Pop"), and my grandmother (Liz), were both getting on in years and dealing with a multitude of health issues.

My grandmother had been suffering through various heart and circulatory problems for years, resulting in the amputations of both legs near her hips by the end of it all. So, by my arriving there, I was indoctrinated into the day-to-day care of a bed-ridden grandmother, from changing diapers, preparing meals and even bathing.

Fun stuff.

My grandfather, Pop, was as good-natured as he could be given the whole situation, and I like to think that he enjoyed just having company to sit and watch baseball with. He also taught me quite a bit about fishing, one of his many passions, and even gave me some of his "special" tried and true bass lures.

I was out fishing one morning (we lived right on the shore of Medina Lake, Lake Hills TX), and my uncle was taking the day off from work to get some projects at home finished up. Standing down on the dock, I hear Dean holler "Andrew! Get up here quick!!" - having never really heard my uncle's voice with that kind of urgency, I knew something was wrong...my mind shuffled through all the possible problems I was about to face - had my grandmother rolled out of her bed and fallen? Did Pop forget his asthma medication again and need the respirator?

When I walked into the house, Pop was sitting on the edge of the couch and looked very pale, and my uncle was in the back bedroom on the phone. I noticed Pop's eyes were closed and his tongue was sticking out just a little...I kind of froze for a second, then heard my uncle come back up to the front room and asked me to help lay Pop down on the ground, the ambulance was on the way.

What...? What the hell is going on? was all I could hear in my head.

I kind of mechanically helped my uncle pick Pop up and we laid him down on the ground, and my mind suddenly decided to rejoin the current world and realized what was happening - Pop was either dying or dead, and we were the only ones there to help.

I started CPR and didn't stop until the medics pushed me out of the way to but a mask over Pop's face.

By the time the coroner arrived, word had spread as it tends to in the south, and family members I'd never even met were arriving by the minute, all in big-hair and too-much-makeup frantics that only Texas can give the world.

I kind of faded into the background, and walked up to the top floor of my aunt and uncle's in-mid-construction house across the lot from my grandparents' place, and sat on the loft rafters, watching the whole scene. Pop had been pronounced dead, and I heard someone on a cell phone asking where to find a larger body bag...the one he had wasn't going to fit. (Pop was a big man at 6'3", 300 lbs easily).

I should've been sad, or crying, or...something. But I wasn't. I was kind of just numb, I guess, and letting it all sink in. I sat there for hours as the sun started to go down, and slowly the ambulance and medical personnel and family members trickled out of the house and drove away or up the hill to the other house to do whatever families do when someone dies.

Sitting in the rafters, staring off over Pop's tomato garden that he cherished so much...and this is pretty hokey and cliche, I know, but I had one of those little chats with God, and just asked Him if Pop was ok. As I tumbled those words around in my head, a dove decided to fly up and park itself on a support beam not more than 2 feet away from me. We sort of looked at each other for a while, and the silly bird cocked it's head sideways at me, made that eerily-comforting 'coo'ing' sound that doves make....and I had a simple, warm feeling flush over me right then and there.

Some time later, my dad flew down for the memorial service, which was both a blessing, as I had begun to miss home severely and having him around in this new environment helped - and a curse, because it was the second, and last, I imagine, time that I saw my dad cry.

Pop was cremated. The flowers eventually wilted, the cards and well-wishes put away in a box and stayed on my aunt and uncle's dresser-top next to my grandfather's ashes, which later became known as Pop-In-A-Box...my uncle's disgustingly funny sense of humor being what it was.

And finally, we spread Pop out amongst his tomato plants, and I knew Pop was alright, happily taking up residence at that new, perfect fishing hole, wishing he could tell us to stop with all the fuss.


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//end.

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Location: Seattle, Washington, United States

I'm old. I'm only 30, but some days I feel *old*. I have a beautiful 6 year old daugher. A nice life. A loving family. A gorgeous girlfriend. Yep, pretty boring. But dammit I'm here to write about it and you can't stop me!

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