This One's For You, Gramps

My earliest memories of my Gramps are of his beard. I was apparently terrified of the beard when I was a baby. I would scream like a little craphead everytime he tried to carry me so he eventually shaved it off. I also remember that my Gramps liked to stir up his chocolate ice cream until it was nice and creamy and smooth. And he always ate it out of a coffee mug. Another thing I remember is that he used to pay me a quarter to comb his beautiful salt and pepper hair. He used some old-fashioned hair gel that came in a metallic tube. It was green and smelled strong. I remember that. He had a small black comb and I would goop up his hair with that gel and go to town. Sometimes I created a mohawk or Billy Idol spikes. It was the 80's, after all. I combed it down the middle once or combed it all back but it always looked nicest combed over to one side. That was his "look". My Gramps used to work in Engineering at Minnesota State back when it was Moorhead State University. I have no idea what he did, other than that he always left for work really early in the morning. Often riding his bike when weather permitted. He ALWAYS took the same black metal lunchbox and it was always packed with basically the same thing. Most notably, his sandwiches never had pre-sliced cheese...I remember that he would slice it himself and it tasted better that way. And he liked his sandwiches with butter. Yes, I remember that too. He peeled his apples before he ate them in a circular fashion that always left a spiral of apple peeling that fascinated me for some odd reason. When the Rubik's Cube came out, My Gramps was hooked. He mastered it time and time again. Everytime a new color combination came out, it was bought and completed. He loved working puzzles of any kind but most especially the crossword puzzles in the paper. His favorite game? Scrabble. And he played it every night when he could. He liked card games and board games and riddles. Gramps was a great cook too. He made things that I didn't like, of course, things like homemade pizza with huge chunks of onions and peppers and icky things that kids don't eat. He also made the best homemade potato soup and I have yet to taste anything quite like it. Everytime we visited him after we moved to Texas, he always requested that we go eat at The Royal Fork. My God but he loved the Royal Fork. It was a buffet loaded with things like mashed potatoes and meatloaf and basic country cooking items with yummy desserts that he loved, like pie and ice cream. Every night Gramps took out his teeth before bed and he loved to gape at me toothless and open-mouthed because he KNEW it made me giggle.
He was a quiet man though. Soft voice. Simple words. He lost his parents in a train accident when he was just a kid. He and his brothers and sisters were sent to an orphanage which, at the time, was the largest in Minnesota. Also...it was a horrific place. Not that we ever would have known from my Gramps. No. It wasn't until later, when another man wrote a book about what he endured at the orphanage, that we discovered what it must have been like. Adoption was little better for any of them. Back then, they adopted kids mainly for labor. My Gramps and one of his sisters were adopted by a stern and foul couple who owned a farm. There is a blank spot during this time period that I do not know of. But I do know that when he was of age, he joined the Army and served during the Korean War as a paratrooper. He met my Gramma on a blind date, if I recall correctly. Of that I don't remember the specifics, but what I DO remember is that my Gramma couldn't dance and she was hesitant to go out with my Gramps because he COULD dance and he danced well...or so the rumors went. Needless to say, he swept her off of her feet. He must have danced very well that night. My grandparents married and it wasn't long before all of the siblings reunited in what would become an annual summertime family reunion. From the time my mother was a child, until the present, every summer the families have gathered to spend a week at the lakes. Now my Gramp's brother, Bill, passed away last year but not until he had attended one last reunion. It was bittersweet and somehow it seemed like the end of an era. Gramps has been in a nursing home for several months and his body has slowly and yet...so quickly...deteriorated. His arthritis has left him small and immobile. His appetite for pies and ice cream, gone. His hands...no longer able to hold a Rubik's Cube let alone manipulate it and the Scrabble pieces...too small to grab. I forgot to mention that my Gramps LOVES the Price Is Right and Wheel Of Fortune. He never misses a show. But now, he sleeps through most of his day.
More than anything else, my Gramps loves God. When the time came that he could not remember the Scriptures that he used to quote with such ease...that seemed to hurt him the most. I remember him in the background, always, so gently...reciting scripture to us all. Never angry, never impatient...just gentle words when I needed them. I wonder how many times I even realized what he was saying to me. Not many, I'm sure. My Gramps has brilliant, ice blue eyes and not even his failing body can dim them. As they prepare to move him into the Hospice program and I know that he will be leaving me soon, I have my memories. I have my images of his blue eyes and him petting his favorite cat and him sitting in a lawn chair during warm summer nights. I have pictures in my head of him sipping his coffee and solving his puzzles. Even if I can't say it for myself, when my Gramps leaves, he knows where he's going and he will be embraced by the same loving God that saw him through his entire life, from his childhood, to his own children. He believes that and I believe it.