Happy birthday grandpa

Happy birthday grandpa!

Would you belive it! 105 today if you had lived. I don’t think you would have wanted to grow so old anyway. You did your time, and I think you were pleased in the end. You know, it’s been so long now since you left back in 1998. I was just 17. Can you believe I was just 17 then? I wasn’t even an adult back then.

I take the memories I have from your presence, and I keep them close to me. I try not to forget them, and guess what – sometimes even forgotten memories of you and me pop up. It’s like re-discovering a forgotten gem.

I remember you taking me to down. Especially the time you bought that model car for me. Then you took me to the cafeteria next door to the toy store for shrimp sandwich. I could never really finish those sandwiches anyway. I was about five years old, and they were huge. I bet you liked them though, and I am very pleased we got to spend this time together. Just you and me. Hey, remember the time when I said I was hungry and you and grandma bought me all that candy? My mom got so mad! We can laugh about that now can we, even my mom I guess!

Sometimes you weren’t too pleased either, and for some reason or another you didn’t like me playing around your trees. I guess it’s not that easy when we lived so close to each other and suddenly you had kids flying around again. It was your tree after all. Hey, maybe it wasn’t really about the tree and the rope I used to throw myself around it with. Maybe this was when you started feeling poor. I never really understood what illness you had, and people said you sort of gave up and just fell back into your chair and stayed there. You should not have given up so easily grandpa.

Remember when you got sick and I got older and I came to see you? My brother watching TV and I had to go elsewhere to watch my sitcoms? I came to you, sat down and watched that show. What was it called again? Coach? With Craig T. Nelson I think. During those years you didn’t say much besides asking me if I could grab this and that or help you out with a few small things. You never asked me what school was like. I have a feeling you had a depression, and I know what that’s like I guess. It’s not that easy. I was on the rise, and you were slowly just drifting away from our world.

I miss your house though. I miss what it looked like. What the outside looked like. Sometimes, when I put my daughter to sleep, I mentally walk through every room in your home just to remember what it was like. Your record player, the cupboard with the chocolate in it, the green coloured hallway, the upstairs, and the dark brown furniture. The photo on the wall of the man in the uniform I never knew who was (nor did I ask) but now know it was your brother who died in that horrible accident.

I remember you growing ever more sick. More and more help with your daily routines. How you talked to the newspaper about fate being cruel and my mom being slightly annoyed with your attitude. Maybe you should have just rolled up your sleeves and tried harder? It’s so hard for me to know.

Then, one day, the ambulance came and you had to go the hospital. I came to see you down there, and my dad tried to talk to you but you didn’t reply. I wonder what that’s like. I think my mom was there when you died, and you were calling out to grandma. She came to see you didn’t she? She took care of you, like she took care of me a few years ago when I needed her.

I don’t know where you are these days. It was your time to leave, and you left.

If there’s one thing I would like, it’s this; wouldn’t it be fun to meet up – both in our prime – and simply share two sixpacks of beer and just talk about stuff? I’ll talk about my life and what I’ve been up too since you left, and you can tell me all the fun stories from your time growing up? After having downed like six beers we would take a walk around the area of your old house and stroll up to your parents farm while the sun is slightly going down on a warm summers day and just hang out? Wouldn’t it be fun just having beers together? Where a past generation meets another and just hang out? The stories you could have told me. Stories you sort of need to be an adult to understand. Becuase that’s what I miss. That one conversation with you – as an adult. Two adults.

So happy birthday grandpa, see you in like 45 years or something. It’s not that long come to think of it. I’ll bring the beer and let’s have that time together. Just you and me like when I was a kid.