Technically, it's my birthday. Not here, of course, but on the mainland where I was born, it is. I'm 27 today. I feel sad. Partly because I'm getting older. Closer to 30 than 20. Weird how fast time flies.
But mostly I'm sad because I'm thinking about my grandfather. Pa.
Pa's in the hospital right now. He's been diagnosed with a lung disease and he'll be on oxygen for the rest of his life. This hurts me so deeply. He's such a proud, independent, active man. It breaks me to think that he's going to be tethered for the rest of his life. I am so aware of his mortality, and it hurts so much.
My Pa is so precious to me. I'm very close to my family. Even with all the miles between us, I feel such a connection.
Pa was born during the depression. He doesn't waste things. He saves. He keeps things. This man will go to 4 stores in a day to use all the coupons and get the best deal on whatever canned good he's buying.
He was a math teacher and a coach before he retired. He lived through some crazy times. He and my grandmother studied and became teachers. My grandmother had Polio as a child, and he's always babied her. He still does. He's worked some shitty jobs. He and my Gran-Gran once worked a summer picking cotton. McDonald's may sound bad, but picking cotton is some seriously shitty work. The two of them both earned Masters degrees.
Coaching is always a challenging job. A coach's job security depends so much on things that are out of his control. Pa's actually had garbage dumped on his porch after not using a school board member's child as a starter. He's been fired. He's been ridiculed. But he always maintained his integrity. He's told me about a time when traveling to away games black team members were not allowed to eat in the dining area of restaurants. Many a time did his team eat on the bus because he refused to have his white players eat in the dining area while black players ate in the kitchen or on the bus. I admire him more than I can express for those progressive choices he made even before I was born.
He's a good man. Honorable. Intelligent. Kind. The man you go to for advice. The man you see as immortal and infallible.
I've never heard him curse. Not once. I remember hearing him say the word "stupid" and I was shocked.
He's so savvy and yet so generous. When I started college I spent about an hour a day with him, working on Algebra. Math comes so naturally to him, as does athletics. He would get so frustrated with me because I just didn't get it. And yet he would work with me.
The first time he spanked me as a child I cried so much. I still remember it so clearly. I had such a snotty nose and I wouldn't wipe or blow it. I refused. He spanked me. The only time he ever spanked me. He carries so much authority and yet such gentleness that it sticks out in my mind.
I didn't even think he liked me when I was little. I was the only girl out of four grandchildren (he now has 4 great-grandchildren, all boys), and he never rough-housed with me. He never "scobbed my nog". With all that he's done for me now, I have no doubt that he loves me.
When I was first married, my husband and I lived in the church parsonage. We moved in and asked him, the person in charge of the parsonage and church funds, to transfer the utilities into our name. Instead he transferred it into his and paid our utilities for some 3 years, all the while pish-poshing any questions about it away. We didn't have much money, and when he'd go to the grocery store and I'd ask him to pick something up for me this math-minded man could never remember how much it was so that I couldn't pay him. He and my Gran-Gran babysat my children while my husband and I were away at college and never asked for a penny.
While in college I had to do some observation for my education classes. I got signed up for a class in Amarillo, about an hour's drive away. I was terrified to drive in the city back then, so he would take me. He'd sit in the car and wait for me. For hours. He'd take me to lunch, and take the check and tell me he didn't know how much it was so that I couldn't pay for my part.
I've never met a more humble and generous man.
When a neighbor's husband died and she decided to sell her trailer house, my husband and I wanted to buy it. It was a mid-80s model, but in spectacular condition and really beautiful. We consulted Pa, as we did before any major decision, telling him we planned to get a loan from the bank. He supported our decision, and wanted to provide the loan for us himself. This man, a teacher by trade, gave us a check for $18,000 to buy this land and trailer house.
We ended up moving closer to college and planned to buy land to move the trailer, but found out that it could not be moved, and my Pa refused to take continued payments on the trailer house. I feel unspeakably guilty about this, but it's just the way he is.
When I was home last winter, all mopey and sad and belligerent, he reprimanded me. It cut so deeply. He's not the type of man who talks and talks. When he says something, it's measured and meaningful. He called me out for being childish and rude (at the dinner table, no less) and it stung. I look up to him so much. His words seem so wise and final to me. I trust him implicitly. He's never harmed me. Never taken advantage. Never shown weakness or spite. He's always noble. Always knowledgeable.
He and my Gran-Gran often played Canasta or dominoes, and she's so competitive. She gets so pissed. When he wins she tells him he's cheating. She bitches. It's so funny because she gets so worked up. If he wins, he cheated. If he loses, he let her win. Either way, she's angry. But he just chuckles. Never an angry word. The worst thing I've ever heard him say to her is a loud, "Nowww DaphINE". He loves her and is so gentle with her, and even at 75+ and wheelchair-ridden she's a firecracker.
He's had all sorts of surgeries. Back surgery. He's had hips and knees replaced and various other things tended to as well. And yet, he's always active. Except of course when football is on. Then he's in his chair, snacking on nuts or candy. He loves candy. He buys it on sale and freezes it. He buys day old donuts on sale and he freezes those, too. He has a sweet tooth. He's the one that taught me that chocolate cake CAN be for breakfast.
Such a busy man, though. He has always spent his days working. He can build houses. He can tend gardens (a typical meal for he and my Gran-Gran is meat cooked in soup, garden tomatoes, onions, and peppers, a couple slices of bread, and a cobbler he's baked). He cares for the multitude of animals that the two of them swear they didn't mean to take in but care for so lovingly. He picked peas and watermelon from his garden...he was always out in his garden or his orchard (haha, that's why he's "pea-pickin' Pa"). He made the best homemade ice cream. He would sweat and bleed and think nothing of it. Like me, he bleeds easily, and he'd often be cut and pouring blood and never even notice. Such a tough man.
He has such a soft spot for Gran-Gran, too. He's never denied her anything. I remember one time he asked me to buy some jewelry for her for some occasion. He gave me around $500 in cash. It was amazing to me. I picked out a beautiful sapphire necklace. It seemed like so much money. He's never felt confident about gift-giving and he always had me or my mom pick something out for Gran-Gran. She has some fantastic jewelry.
He's so stoic and hard-working and yet so incredibly generous and loving. Last Christmas he bought the tickets for the boys and I to fly back home. I had the money to repay them but he and Gran-Gran refused.
I'm trying so hard to describe him...to detail him in a way that others can understand what a special human being he is, but I just can't manage it. He's larger than life to me. There's nothing he wouldn't do for his family...or really for anyone else he thought was in need. Words fail me. I just love him so much. He seems too special to succumb to age and to death. It hurts me so much that I can't be with him and with Gran-Gran. I realize that he won't be around forever, and I just want to soak up his wisdom and his presence. I hate being so far away. I'm so scared that something will happen before I get to come back home. And I want my kids to know the Pa that I knew. And it seems that now that isn't possible.
Adrian says that Pa will still be scuttling around, working on this and that, even with the oxygen tank, but I'm scared that Pa will lose his spark and his purpose.
I love that man.