Today's ingredient for our Caregiver Salad is my very first caregiver inspiration; my great grandfather.
I was so very lucky to get to know and love the man I called Gramp.
I don't remember much from my childhood but I remember everything about him.
He was my great grandfather; my dad's grandpa.
Gramp lived with us before my parents got divorced but most of my memories are from after he moved out.
I do remember one funny memory at the house my mom and dad shared.
He was babysitting me while mom and dad were out.
Gramp stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes.
"Don't go to sleep, Gramp."
"I'm not sleeping, I'm just resting my eyes". The next thing I knew, he was snoring.
Mom and dad divorced when I was 5.
After the divorce I only got to see him every other Saturday.
He was my everything.
I can visualize every wrinkle. Feel the texture of his stubble on my cheek from a days growth of whiskers.
His eyes held so much love and pride and his smile was just for me.
He was the only adult in my world that would sit on the floor and color with me.
(I still have the dinasaur coloring book he used to color in.)
He would play dollies with me too.
(Way back in my foggiest of memories I remember a doll named Carrie.)
He used to have this awful scratchy pink chair, if I close my eyes I can still see it. I can even almost feel it. I never understood why he would chose to sit on a chair like that but the material never really bothered me because I was always on his lap.
Gramp always smelled like a mixture of love and Copenhagen.
I don't remember him doing anything gross like spitting, even though I know he must have. I just remember that once in a while he would have a fat bottom lip.
I can also still see the snuff cans sitting in his cupboard usually in between the shot glasses and the Metamucil.
Gramp called it snuff so snuff it will forever be.
One of our favorite outings was a walk down Broadway Avenue in Mpls, back in the day it was the place to be.
There were always tons of people hustling and bustling to get where they needed to go.
Gramp liked to head down to Friedman's Shoes. We would stop in and get him his old people shoes and then it was off to the fun stuff.
(Amazingly enough Friedman's is still an open and operating shoe store.)
Next it was time for window shopping.
We would walk side by side, hand in hand, smiling and laughing the whole time. Gramp's hands were old and wrinkled but I remember them feeling soft, gentle and more than anything else they felt safe.
There was no bad in the world when he was holding my hand on Broadway Ave.
It was during one of these window shopping outings that I came across the prettiest dolls I had ever seen. I tugged at his hand and all but pulled him into the store.
One doll was red and the other was blue. I LOVED them!
Gramp told me that I could pick one of those pretty dolls to take home with me. Of course my spoiled little self didn't want only one, I wanted them both.
Little did I know that with the limited income Gramp had at the time, there was no way he could get both of them for me, no matter how badly he wanted to.
After a bit of a baby brat meltdown I finally chose the red one. I was so excited as they got her out of the window and bagged her up for me.
Our next stop was Tally Ho. Tally Ho was a tiny little hole in the wall restaurant. It had bar stools at the counter and he would lift me up to sit next to him like a big girl, no booth for us. There we would sit and have a little lunch. I felt so grown up and so very very special.
After our amazing day we would head back to his apartment and wait for my dad to come pick me up. Gramp's apartment was way up on a high floor in a high rise building. We would ride the elevator for a really long time to one of the top floors to get to his place. The view out his window was amazing.
Two weeks after I got my red "fancy doll", when I got to Gramp's for our Saturday visit he had a gift for me. Guess what it was; the blue fancy doll!!! Gramp spoiled me just a bit.
(20 years later there would be a flood in the storage room in my home that those dolls were kept in. They were both ruined. It was one of the most heartbreaking losses I have suffered to this day.)
One day about a year after mom and dad's divorce, my mom came to pick me up from school early. I was excited to get out of school for the day but I wanted to know why, why mom.....what are we doing?
"We're going to have lunch with your dad."
Well that sentence stopped me in my tracks, mom and dad never did anything together. Something was wrong.
When we got to my dad's we actually went up to his apartment. This was getting stranger by the minute, mom and dad in the same room?
There was a strange silence in the room for quite a while. Then they started arguing,
"you tell her"
"no you tell her"
"no you tell her."
Well, at least the arguing was more normal,
but tell me what?!
Finally dad decided he was going to be the one to take the lead and he told me that Gramp had died.
"No! I just saw him. He wasn't even sick!!!"
Yes Tina, he had a heart attack. I'm so sorry, he died.
I just started to scream and scream and scream.
I truly have no idea what happened after that.
I went with my dad to Gramp's funeral.
When dad held me up, I leaned over his casket and put my hand over his.
I remember how cold his hand was but mostly I just remember him lying there like he was asleep.
I can see that now as if it was yesterday, he died when I was 6.
The only thing I have left of him are his dinasaur coloring book and one picture of myself and my cousin on his lap.
One day I will have his little blue alarm clock as well. My dad is holding on to that one for me for now.
I can't tell you about much of anything that happened in my childhood but Gramp will never leave me.
Lovely post!