Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

I miss you both, especially you, Old Man.

When Grandma died this summer I was sad. But it was time. She hadn't been herself for years since the accident caused by an underage teen t-boning Grandpa and Grandma's car. She just faded and got mean. It was time. 

But Grandpa's passing was more difficult. Much more. That hardy submariner grabbed at every minute he had left. For the last year he needed liters of fluid drawn off of his lungs every week. And most days he wanted to be in this world. Yes, 92 years were taking their toll on his mind, but he never ceased being him to the very end. The rest of his friends and family were gone. The younger family, other than my dad--the son-in-law--were at least 900 miles away. But we tried to go up when we could. Stressful, but good.

Was he always nice? Reference: submariner. To quote the priest who gave a sermon for him,  "If you wanted his opinion, he'd give it to you. If you didn't, well, you'd get it anyway." You may not like it, but you knew where you stood. He and I spent time just relaxing outside on various porches talking about life. We didn't always agree, and hell, if it was politics or religion I guarantee we didn't. And yet, we'd (normally) just kibbutz and have a good time. I miss those chats and stories. Boy did he have a lot of awesome stories!

I didn't realize how much I miss that old coot until Saturday. Looking up at the burl-base lights he made long long ago clicked something in my brain. I wanted one of those chats. Him with his scotch and water, me with just water. I never did drink booze with him. But last night, meds be damned, I had a swig for him. Not scotch. Um... Kinky Pink. He would not have approved of either the name or the frufru-ness. Which makes it even better! (Or maybe he would. If I recall correctly, Grandma liked the bottled cooler version of the drink.) So we shared a drink. 

And that will have to suffice. I wish I would have pulled every story out of his memory, embellished or not, and written them down. I think I'm going to have to do that for the ones I do remember. And I'm going to keep the lights on. They make me smile. As much as he drove me crazy, Fox News and all, I loved him so much. Grandma too, but he held highest honors. Here's to you, Gramps!

It's Been a Long Three Months

Hey there! I do exist! I swear! I'm working on getting less bat shit insane, but I'm finally going to give y'all an update, and boy, is this going to be an update. It may need two posts. From my phone. Forgive my probable grammar and spelling mistakes. 

Now, how I'm going to go about this is going to be rapid-fire at first, then I'll break it down later.

October went fine, with only a few hiccups but nothing major or out of character. November? Not so much. So here we go: 

1. I made a mistake at work that left me in question to whether I had a job--for weeks. 
2. Link started acting stranger than usual. Unable to sit still, non-stop whining and pacing. Perfectly fine during the day. I got no sleep and he declined. Took him to vet. Not much they could do but give him pain meds and hope for the best.
3. Started the drive to South Dakota with Mom and the dog. And I ran over somebody's big dog on the interstate. Killed the dog, did lots of damage to the car (mostly covered by insurance). Limped the car home and let Mom go north without me. Really glad Link had his seatbelt on.
4. That weekend Link went off the deep end, snapping at me, tearing things up, repeating the weekend before but worse. It was time.
5. The following Monday I put him to sleep. He even got a full order of McNuggets before I said goodbye. Damn, do I miss that dog. 
6. Said that nobody else is allowed to die, nothing's allowed to break, November was still salvageable. 
7. Heh. 
8. That Thanksgiving week I got the call that Grandpa had died in his sleep. Crap. Family decided that he could chill till next week when traveling was safe enough to drive up and have the funeral. 
9. Thanksgiving weekend a sewer pipe in my house cracked. Not a big deal day to day with how the house is made or where I am in the line. But it wasn't (isn't) going to be cheap.
10. Eating was becoming difficult as nausea has kicked up and innards committed mutiny.
11. Traveled to SD for the funeral which was nice but really stressful with my declining body and outside stress making it worse every day. Cleaned out (some) clothes from the grandparents' house. And about 100 pairs of my grandmother's shoes. 
12. Rode home with Dad so I could go back to work (when I found that I did indeed still have a job).
13. Found out that I had lost over 20 pounds since the beginning of November on accident and still losing. 
14. Also found out that the nausea was... psychosomatic caused by stress. The difficulty eating probably is too, but I'm still working on that. 
15. Aaaand... we're back to less stress. There's still quite a bit there, but nothing in comparison to the last month.

Which brings me to the end of the year. Nothing more was allowed to break (too late), or anybody to die (still good), or, or, or.

With that, I'll leave you with a photo of Link's final (for now) resting place in front of a lamp made by my late grandfather.