the things we remember

On Tuesday morning, heaven gained an angel. A man who was good to his fellow man, and a man who loved people left this earth...and I am dealing. I thought it would be easier seeing him ready to go. Then again, many things seem easier until we actually do them.

My grandfather was special to me for so many reasons. First of all, we shared the same birthday. In 7 days I'll be 31. In 7 days he would have been 90. He used to take Holly and I to Pizza Hut. He would cut my pizza up into bite sized pieces; the same way he did my steak when he grilled out for us at his home.

I remember once he and grandmother took Holly and I to Krystal's. I was probably 7 or so. There was a creepy guy who kept staring at me. My grandfather never touched his food. He sat with his hand balled into a fist the entire meal. When the man left, I caught him writing down his car tags as we left the parking lot.

I was baptised on Palm Sunday. My grandfather was so proud that day. He and my grandmother came to church to see my baptism and afterwards we went back to our house for a big celebration lunch. As we were walking in, he pulled me into one of his strong hold bear hugs. He told me with tears in his eyes how happy he was to see this happen.

When I started playing sports, my grandfather came to see me play. The first home run I hit, he found and made me sign it. He kept it until it dry rotted and then peeled the leather off and kept it.

When I got into high school, he took me and Holly to the Orange Bowl. It was a miserable loss to Penn State. I was being a sourpuss after the game, and he told me cheerfully that there was always next year and to never be a sore loser. (Still working on that one, Gia.)

The year after I graduated, I was car less. He loaned me a red blazer. (The hood he had painted himself with house paint. didn't match at all.) I drove that thing until the transmission literally fell out of it. He wasn't thrilled, but he never raised his voice to me.

When I got married, he was there...tears in his sweet blue eyes. Smiling like the sunshine.

When my father died he was there. He lifted me up, and loved me.

He always loved me. I always knew it.
I always loved him. He always knew it.

I miss him terribly already. My world won't be the same again.

I love you, Gia. Always and forever. Save some beer and pizza for me.

celebrating fathers

Today we celebrated Father's Day with my grandad. We had cake and grandad got so many nice things. I hope he knows how much we love him everyday of the year... and not just the special days. Here are grandads' girls, (minus Holly... she hadn't made it up there yet when I was taking pictures, but she was missed!).

Here are my mom and my uncle with their dad. This picture is missing Aunt Carolyn, she had to leave early, but hopefully we'll get another picture with the three of them with Gia sometime soon. : )

Happy Father's Day, Gia. You are so loved!




*Little Boxes- Malvina Reynolds

29, 88....Hut?

He turned 88 yesterday, and I turned 29. We both look pretty damn good.

Happy Birthday, Gia. Love you....

a man and his jewel

This Christmas Eve will mark 67 years that my grandfather proposed to my grandmother. He told me the story today, and it's something I wanted to both share and remember:

As told by my grandfather; his fierce, blue eyes alight with joy:

" I was 21, and stationed in Edmonton, South Carolina. Our chief basically told us to get lost for the weekend. He didn't care what we did, or where we went, we were just told to be back on Sunday night, and to check in. I wanted to see your Grandmother. I took a bus from South Carolina. It was so crowded on the bus, I had to stand the whole way home. My brother picked me up at the bus station, and drove me home. I took the car down to Harriman, and parked it slanted across there from the municipal building. I was going to suprise your grandmother, so I parked a little way down the road. I had no intention of proposing to her, I just missed her, and thought about her often. As I headed down the road, I passed a little shop with jewelry in it. I had some time to kill, waiting on Grandmother to get off work, so I popped in, mostly just to get out of the cold. I started looking around and I saw a ring, I automatically thought of her, my sweet jewel, Irene. I asked the shopkeeper how much that ring was. He told me 50 dollars, which was a lot of money back then, you know. I looked in my wallet and found that I had exactly that amount. I bought the ring, and headed down to the five and dime, where grandmother worked. I watched her through the window, cleaning and straightening up. So sweet and happy, my jewel. When she got off work, I suprised her- she was both happy and shocked to see me! When we got in the car, I took her hand and slipped that ring on. The next day, my dad and my brother drove me back to South Carolina. They had to pool their gas stamps to get me there and get back home, but we all made it. I was late getting back, but I slipped in and went straight to bed. No one ever said anything to me!"

My heart is melting. This may be the sweetest story I've ever heard, and the fact that it happend to two people I love so dearly, is simply magical. I love you both...

Love,
Heather

hard to breathe

I share a birthday with one of the most important men in my life, my grandfather- or Gia to me. I started calling him that as a little girl, and it never really stopped. So he's my Gia. Last week he was put in the hospital with fluid on his heart and lungs. I totally freaked out. I called Mark at work on the emergency line and pretty much scared the crap out of him I was crying so hard. He and I both left work early to run up to the hospital and check the situation out for ourselves.

Gia was already in a room when we got to the hospital and seeing him lying there, wheezing, I can't tell you what that did to me. It shook me. So the first thing I did was to find out what was going on with his body. He was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure several years ago so, (but has managed it well with diet and exercise) that on top of this fluid on his heart and lungs was pretty scary for me. They ruled out pneumonia pretty quickly. The following day they ruled out a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs) -which was a relief, because that scared the crap out of me. They ultimately decided he has some form of cardiac asthma, brought on my the heart failure. After several breathing treatments, steroids and inflammatory drugs, he was feeling much better, but at some point in his stay at the hospital he had developed pneumonia. GREAT! They were able to catch and treat it quickly though and he was able to come home on Sunday.

We are so glad to have him back at home now. We love you Gia.