A Year Later...

“Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.”  ~Lamartine

One year ago today, the phone rang and time stood still. My grandfather had joined the ranks of the angels in Heaven and my world was suddenly and irrevocably depopulated.

He’d been in the hospital for a few weeks and we knew things weren’t good but nothing prepares you for the moment of that phone call. In the same way, I’ve learned, nothing prepares you for how to move on from that moment. I’m not sure that I’ve done it very well; in all honesty, I’m almost glad I haven’t. That the heartache still lingers tells me that the very special place he held in my heart is still there. And will remain.

In the years between my grandmother’s passing and his journey home, we worried that he would be lonely or that he wouldn’t fair well living alone. What started out as a little mission to keep tabs on things turned into some of my most cherished memories.

Thursday nights, 8:00 sharp, I’d call him. If I didn’t call him, my phone was ringing by 8:02. Everyone who spent any time with me knew that time slot was taken, no exceptions. Sometimes we’d talk for 5 minutes, sometimes 45. And if there were an occasional glitch in my schedule, I always found a substitute (and rumor has it, when he realized it wasn’t me on the line, there was a disappointed “oh, where is she?”). I always knew he loved me best! J

We’d play Who Wants to Be a Millionaire over the phone. We’d play Are You Smarter than a 5^th Grader? (He was; me, not so much. Come to find out, when we’d play, it was a rerun of the day’s earlier episode… that he’d already watched! Sneaky fella, my grandpa!) We’d talk about the weather and if there’s a man on the planet who knows more weather trivia than he, I’d really like to meet him. We’d talk about current events and news. Between the two of us, we had some great solutions for most of the world’s problems. We’d talk about family members I’d never met. He’d tell me about things from the past- his travels square dancing with my grandma, his work at the plant, or more recent things- the week’s trips around town, visits to the turtle pond with a friend, or this or that. Nothing that really mattered yet everything that really matters. And every call ended the same way:

Me: “I’ll call you next week.”

Him: “Not if I call you first.”

Me: “I love you.”

Him: “I love you, too.”

I learned more about him in the last few years of his life than I did in the first 30 of mine. That, as I look back, saddens me. I have kicked myself 10,000 times for not initiating the Thursday night phone call earlier, while both he and my grandmother were around. I’d give nearly anything under the sun to have one more call but then again, the difficult thing about having such a profound tradition is finding a new normal when it’s gone. I'm not quite there yet.

Because I leave for work in the dark and I get back home in the dark, I took some time this weekend to celebrate the life of my grandfather by releasing balloons in his honor. I’m pretty sure there’s room in his mansion in Heaven for them. I imagine that the view from his window looks out over my house and that he keeps an eye on me… when he’s not brushing up on his trivia for Millionaire and 5^th Grader. I’m also absolutely certain that he checks his watch at 8:00 sharp on Thursday nights up there, just the same way I do down here.

Miss you madly. Think of you always. Love you forever.