On Grass Seed and Grandfathers...

I was walking through Home Depot the other morning and I came upon an elderly man standing in front of a row of grass seed. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I stopped and watched him for a moment, as he stood there perplexed; his hands shaking as he reached out and looked at various bags, shaking his head in indecision before returning his hand to his hip and appearing to be lost in thought as he brooded over the project at hand. I felt my eyes begin to well up with tears and I quickly rushed past him, reminding myself to breathe deeply so that I wouldn’t end up a bawling mess in the middle of Home Depot (because what poor Home Depot worker wants to deal with that???) and I went about my business, but the train of thought had nevertheless begun its journey, and it seems that it must continue until I thoroughly process these feelings, and thus, here I am. You see, this precious old man that I came upon in the home improvement store reminded me sorely of my own grandfather, with whom I grew up and knew as my own father for most of my life. He was big and strong, early to rise, and always busy doing something. And in perhaps the biggest similarity to this stranger that I observed in the store, he was ever trying to grow grass in our front yard to no avail. Through the tears that did come later, I just had to smile.

My grandfather will be eighty-five this year, and he was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t get to talk to him often, but his decline seemed to come so quickly, and even hundreds of miles away it’s hard to swallow. My heart aches when I remember the man who invented projects just to stay busy; who was always building or growing something in the backyard. He was the slayer of all things creepy and crawly, the chauffeur of family trips, the builder of warm fires on chilly winter mornings, the bearer of shoulders that made children feel on top of the world, and the keeper of a heart that seemed hard on the outside but that on the inside was filled with so much love and compassion that he would give you the world, including the shirt off of his own back if you truly needed it.

He loved me as his own. He still does. My grandmother says he often asks when my husband and I are coming, or he thinks we have been there recently, and I am glad to know that he is thinking of us. He loves my boys too, and I am so incredibly happy that I have been able to capture such beautiful moments with them over the years. Although my heart hurts that life is finite, that the time is approaching all too quickly that I will have to say goodbye, I count myself beyond blessed to have been loved and taken care of by this man and his precious wife. They are truly my heroes in this life, and to them I owe it all.