Last night I dreamed of my Grandpa. He died 7 years ago when Link was a baby. Kiki is the only one of my kids who has any memory of him. She calls him “Grandpa lying down” because She was there the day they brought him home from the hospital on a back board. He was unable to walk from the ambulance to his bed in the house. By the time he died, he’d been bedridden for 5 years and the Grandpa I’d loved was long gone. Howard never got to meet the vibrant, interesting person he was. Howard only met a sick old man too tired to do much talking. I wish my kids had someone like my Grandpa. Grandpa was a tinkerer. He had a huge garage that he’d built himself. It was full of air compressors and table mount vice grips and soddering irons and radio tubes. It was so full of those things that there was only a narrow walkway through them to the workbench. I still remember the smell of that place. It was a strange mix of concrete, grease, and metal. I was only allowed in occasionally and only if Grandpa was with me because there were too many dangerous tools and machines lying around in there.
Grandpa fixed everything. He always had a project and he always involved his grandkids when we were around. With Grandpa I straightened bicycle spokes, sawed through lumber by hand, formed table legs on a lathe, soddered circuit boards, and any number of other things. Obviously Grandpa had no antiquated ideas about “girls work” and “boys work” we all did stuff with Grandpa. He called me his “Gal” with his southern accent mellowed by years of living in California. He’d sit me on his lap and tickle me with his “billy-goat beard” and tell me tall tales about hunting for bears. Grandma would scold him for telling such tall tales, but we all loved them. I wish I could remember the tales, but I can’t. All I can remember is that I loved them and listened to them with a wide-eyed wonder, not sure if I should believe them or not. Grandpa’s hands were never clean, no matter how often he washed them. The grease and dirt was ground in so thoroughly it wouldn’t come off. Those hands were hard and calloused. The hands of a man who tinkered and worked all day every day.
Grandpa was always skinny. The fact that he was missing about half of his teeth might have had something to do with it. Grandma always had to adjust her southern cooking so that there were foods Grandpa could eat. As an adult I wonder why he never got dentures or implants, but he never did. He just grinned his grin full of holes. Grandpa was also deaf in one ear. I think he was hard of hearing in the other one as well. We always had to speak loud and clear so that Grandpa could hear us. He had a succession of hearing aids, including some that he made himself. He didn’t like them much though. He was always taking them out and losing them. It was only years later that we figured out that perhaps some of the “losing” was on purpose so he could pretend not to hear Grandma when the mood struck him. He seemed to like the hearing aids he made for himself better even though they were invariably bulky. He even rigged a hand held speaker to the TV so that he could hold it up to his ear. That way everyone could have comfortable volume levels.
One summer he had all of us kids help him haul rocks to clear the ground for a huge garden. He planted and created sprinkling systems so that the plants would live. We’d come for visits and help with the harvesting. The garden seemed to get bigger every year. Especially the strawberry patch. We loved the strawberry patch. The grasshoppers also loved the strawberry patch. One of our favorite pasttimes was catching jars full of grasshoppers. They came in a startling array of varieties. Grandpa didn’t like the grasshoppers. He was happy that we caught them. Less happy when we released them back into the wild on the other end of the yard. It seemed so far away to us, but I’m sure they were back in the strawberries in less than an hour. An acre just isn’t that far to a grasshopper. Grandpa also arranged sprinklers for Grandma’s flowers and the small patch of lawn. Grandpa tinkered and planted in the garden for years. It seemed like he was always shifting rocks and making it bigger. Then the garden stopped getting bigger. Then the garden began shrinking. The shrinking of the garden was the first sign that Grandpa was beginning to wear out, although we didn’t know it at the time.
In my dream he was the Grandpa of my childhood. He was all the things I’ve told and more that I’m unable to describe. I woke missing him so much that I wanted to cry.
My grandpa passed away just under a year ago. He was one of my absolute heroes: retired Brigadier General in the Army, proud father of four daughters, doting husband, and adoring grandfather. He made each of his grandchildren feels special, telling us each “You’re one of my best ones!” And we believed he meant that especially for us.
His health started failing a few years ago, due to cancer, and we felt for a long time that he could go “at any time.” However, he lasted years longer than any of us anticipated. We loved having him around, though, even though he wasn’t necessarily the strong, vibrant, full-of-life Grandpa we all knew.
I’m sad that my future wife, whoever she may be, and my future kids will not have the opportunity to meet him. However, I’m glad that I was able to know him. He was and is my hero. And my future kids, I have a feeling, already know him well. They won’t remember him in this life, of course, but he’ll know who they are. And there will never be a lack of stories, so that they’ll hopefully feel like they do know him. (We were lucky that he self-published an autobiography a year or two before his health and memory really started failing.)
I’m sure your grandpa knows your kids, too. And he loves them. 🙂
My grandpa passed away just under a year ago. He was one of my absolute heroes: retired Brigadier General in the Army, proud father of four daughters, doting husband, and adoring grandfather. He made each of his grandchildren feels special, telling us each “You’re one of my best ones!” And we believed he meant that especially for us.
His health started failing a few years ago, due to cancer, and we felt for a long time that he could go “at any time.” However, he lasted years longer than any of us anticipated. We loved having him around, though, even though he wasn’t necessarily the strong, vibrant, full-of-life Grandpa we all knew.
I’m sad that my future wife, whoever she may be, and my future kids will not have the opportunity to meet him. However, I’m glad that I was able to know him. He was and is my hero. And my future kids, I have a feeling, already know him well. They won’t remember him in this life, of course, but he’ll know who they are. And there will never be a lack of stories, so that they’ll hopefully feel like they do know him. (We were lucky that he self-published an autobiography a year or two before his health and memory really started failing.)
I’m sure your grandpa knows your kids, too. And he loves them. 🙂
I’ve had a similar dream about my beloved grandmother. I’ve also had days that for some reason or no reason at all I really really missed her and wished she were around.
I know that my kids won’t have the experience of having Grandma down the street, or living with Grandma during highschool like I did, but, there’s a nice older lady who lives around the corner who is becoming like a substitute nearby grandma to us all.
Plus, my mom has vowed to be a really good grandma to ALL her grandchildren. (because she had grandparents who were selective about which grandchildren “needed their influence”, and they decided that she and her siblings didn’t.) So, that makes my mom the “fun grandma” and she comes to see us as much as possible. I know that my kids will grow up with happy memories about her as their grandma, just like I have wonderful memories about MY grandma.
…and I tell them about my beloved Grandma Pingel whenever it comes up…
I’ve had a similar dream about my beloved grandmother. I’ve also had days that for some reason or no reason at all I really really missed her and wished she were around.
I know that my kids won’t have the experience of having Grandma down the street, or living with Grandma during highschool like I did, but, there’s a nice older lady who lives around the corner who is becoming like a substitute nearby grandma to us all.
Plus, my mom has vowed to be a really good grandma to ALL her grandchildren. (because she had grandparents who were selective about which grandchildren “needed their influence”, and they decided that she and her siblings didn’t.) So, that makes my mom the “fun grandma” and she comes to see us as much as possible. I know that my kids will grow up with happy memories about her as their grandma, just like I have wonderful memories about MY grandma.
…and I tell them about my beloved Grandma Pingel whenever it comes up…
While I haven’t had dreams about him (at least not in the last several years), I really miss my great grandfather. Grandpa Haeberstroh was an amazing guy. When he was 90+, he still lived on his own, in a big farmhouse in the country (Though very close to his daughter and sons). I remember visiting him and talking about books for HOURS. He loved “Cowboy books” (I’ve got his entire collection of Louie LaMore (sp) still, and several first editions of this that and the other), and I loved mysteries. He’d faught in Italy in World War One, and would tell us stories till long past it was time to go back to my mom’s parents house and go to bed. He cooked, cleaned, and did everything for himself until a series of strokes stole this grand old man away and replaced him with someone who was laying in a hospital for months (my family has a long tradition of confounding doctors and their “it’ll happen soon”).
But god was he still sharp. At one point, he was struggling with the letter board trying to get a message across to his kids (damn those strokes). After 2 days, they figured it out. He was concered about his CDs (not the music kind), and their roll-over date was very close. They just told him they took care of it, and not to worry. He pestered them on it for 2 more days till they showed him proof.
My last memory of the man was walking into the hospial room, wearing a hat he often kidded me about. He locked his eyes on me, haised his hand, and did that index-finger pionting-at-you shake… We all laughed, and then they had to suction his airway… I ran out, terrified…
While it’s a dear memory, I often wish I hadn’t gone… I wish that my last memory of him was when he was up, and moving around, and laughing and talking and telling use stories (I recall believing that he single-handedly defeated the Keiser in personal combat).
I hope I have that much fight in me when it’s near my time, to hold out for a couple of months more than anyone thought possible.
But I won’t want my grandkids to see me like that…
While I haven’t had dreams about him (at least not in the last several years), I really miss my great grandfather. Grandpa Haeberstroh was an amazing guy. When he was 90+, he still lived on his own, in a big farmhouse in the country (Though very close to his daughter and sons). I remember visiting him and talking about books for HOURS. He loved “Cowboy books” (I’ve got his entire collection of Louie LaMore (sp) still, and several first editions of this that and the other), and I loved mysteries. He’d faught in Italy in World War One, and would tell us stories till long past it was time to go back to my mom’s parents house and go to bed. He cooked, cleaned, and did everything for himself until a series of strokes stole this grand old man away and replaced him with someone who was laying in a hospital for months (my family has a long tradition of confounding doctors and their “it’ll happen soon”).
But god was he still sharp. At one point, he was struggling with the letter board trying to get a message across to his kids (damn those strokes). After 2 days, they figured it out. He was concered about his CDs (not the music kind), and their roll-over date was very close. They just told him they took care of it, and not to worry. He pestered them on it for 2 more days till they showed him proof.
My last memory of the man was walking into the hospial room, wearing a hat he often kidded me about. He locked his eyes on me, haised his hand, and did that index-finger pionting-at-you shake… We all laughed, and then they had to suction his airway… I ran out, terrified…
While it’s a dear memory, I often wish I hadn’t gone… I wish that my last memory of him was when he was up, and moving around, and laughing and talking and telling use stories (I recall believing that he single-handedly defeated the Keiser in personal combat).
I hope I have that much fight in me when it’s near my time, to hold out for a couple of months more than anyone thought possible.
But I won’t want my grandkids to see me like that…
I know it’s hard to wake missing him so terribly.. but whenever I have a dream like that, I try to view it as a gift. For a moment or three, I’ve held a hand I’ve not held in a long time; for a little while, they were here with me, loving me out loud again.
Perhaps, wherever he’s gone, he wanted you to know he’s still there for you. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
I know it’s hard to wake missing him so terribly.. but whenever I have a dream like that, I try to view it as a gift. For a moment or three, I’ve held a hand I’ve not held in a long time; for a little while, they were here with me, loving me out loud again.
Perhaps, wherever he’s gone, he wanted you to know he’s still there for you. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?