Today would’ve been my grandpa’s 81st birthday. We used to celebrate by going out to dinner at his favorite restaurant, where he’d sit at the head of the table and let out his bellow of a laugh between sips of red wine. I miss him always, but especially today.
In honor of him, I’m sharing something I wrote after his passing in the late fall of 2016:
An Unconventional Obituary for my Grandfather
(Originally written November 2016)
I’ve decided it’s unfair that we don’t get to share the same number of days as the people we love. I’ve been thinking about that a lot while sifting through old pictures of my grandpa, who died this past Friday in a hospital bed. I think about it while looking at his younger self laughing or dancing or hugging my grandmother in faded polaroids and posed portraits. It infuriates me to my core that I don’t get to know the entirety of him: the guy who wore plaid pants in the late 1970s, the shy choir boy in the early 50s, even as he wore the name “Grandpa” for the first time in 1993 while holding me, his first of six grandchildren.
But then I think about how lucky we both were. How lucky we were to have 23 years overlap, 23 years of ice cream cones on the beach and soda in Bojangles cups while watching Panthers games, 23 years of making fun of his sock tan lines from hours on the golf course, 23 years of listening to Frank Sinatra on Christmas day. I think about hugging him at my high school swim meets. I think about hugging him at my college graduation. I even think about hugging him in his hospital bed, a tangle of arms and IV cords.
Grandpa’s hospital room changed six times in three months — three different rooms on the fourth floor, one in the acute care center, and two in ICU. Each room was the same, except for the view through the windows along the far wall. Sometimes, we could see the looping silhouette of the roller coasters at Carowinds. Sometimes, it was the highway. And sometimes, it was just the looming gray clouds and the other brick buildings that made up the medical center. We tried to make each spot feel less sterilized, more home-y with pictures of our family. His worn white boat shoes were on the floor by the closet and we kept his razor and toothbrush in a little black bag on the counter. But what made him feel most at home was my nana, who sat in the generic pleather recliner by his bed for 90 days, bringing him homemade chicken broth when he was cleared for liquids, holding his hand when he was scared, reading him stories when he was sleepy, and kissing him at least five times before leaving each night.
My grandparents met in 1964 at Nana’s party. He was a friend of a friend of hers, and he brought a nurse as a date. He got drunk and slept on my Nana’s couch. It wasn’t love at first sight.
But they met again at a party two months later. This time, they talked more than they drank, and they learned that they both loved Catch 22. He was a hopeless romantic, Nana soon discovered, and they got married later that decade. My grandmother, always stylish, wore a black pantsuit and my grandfather wore a smile.
Fast forward through the childhoods of my mother and aunt, through new homes in Orange and Milford and Torrington and Rochester and St. Louis and Simsbury, through changing jobs and schools and friend groups, and finally I got to meet him. I don’t remember, but my grandparents drove 14 hours from their little home in Connecticut and to the hospital where I was born in Winston Salem. There’s a picture of my grandpa wearing stripes and holding me, his curly hair still more brown than gray.
My mom once told me that Grandpa was nervous to have grandkids, but you can’t tell by the pictures. He was a natural — holding me to his chest, my peach-fuzzed head resting on his shoulder, his mouth in a crooked combination of a smile and a laugh. And he looked the same for both of my siblings and all three of my cousins: comfortable, happy, proud.
Growing up, there were few things better than the triumphant feeling of making Grandpa laugh. He had a sharp sense of humor, one he let loose through a jolly, rolling laugh. It was the kind of laugh that grew more constant as we grew older and could match his humor with jokes of our own.
My grandpa taught me how to drink wine the way connoisseurs do — nose in the glass, deep inhale, sip, swish, gulp. He tried to explain his political views to me, and got mad when I couldn’t explain my own. He let me borrow his oversized sweatshirts, knowing fully well he’d probably never get them back. I learned a new curse word every time I rode in his car, his road rage exploding when drivers didn’t use their turn signals.
My grandparents helped pay my college tuition, making sure I wouldn’t be weighed down in student loans after I graduated. At my school, the graduation uniform was as expected. We wore heavy robes and flat top caps and a shiny blue academic stole draped over our shoulders. However, it was tradition to give your stole to someone who had an immense impact on your college education. I folded mine carefully and handed it to my grandparents weeks later in their living room, crying as they hugged me tightly. Grandpa hung the blue fabric over the floor length mirror in his room.
My grandpa had a bad stomach ache a year later. That’s how he ended up in the hospital, where his days were filled with poking and prodding and restless sleeps. But they were also filled with surprise visits from his golf buddies and grandchildren. He got phone calls and greeting cards and text messages every day. My grandpa may have been in that hospital bed by himself, but he was never alone. One night, on speaker phone with his best friend from work and under a haze of pain medication, he said, “I’m spinning around the universe, Joe,” and they both laughed those full-bellied laughs for a few minutes, haunting the sterile hospital room with a sense of warmth.
My grandpa died a few days after that phone call. It was on that day I sat next to him and read stories I’d written about him, little vignettes about his house in Connecticut, ice cream cones, that kind of stuff. Nana kissed him more times than I could count. We all did. We held his hands when his breathing grew ragged and we held his hands when that horrible machine I’d only seen in movies began to flatline. We held his hands until the very end.
I don’t really know what I believe. I don’t know if we go somewhere after we die, and I don’t know if I believe in the power of luck or fate or prayer. What I do know is this: my grandpa was living proof that love was real and abundant, and though I’m not sure I’ll see him again in another life or realm or dream, I do know he’ll be a part of me forever, through sips of wine, through messy licks of ice cream, through laughter and Panthers games and oversized sweatshirts I’ll never get to return. And in a heart-breaking, torturous way, that’s enough.
Sending you all love today and into 2022,
Haley
HaleyWroteThis is a free newsletter written by me (Haley Weaver!) and occasionally edited by my brilliant younger brother, Graham Weaver. If you like my work, consider supporting my Patreon or checking out my shop.