A Couple Stories For You

Well, I haven't posted anything in a while and have been meaning to for a week or so. Now I think I've waited too long and I can't remember all of the funny stories I wanted to share with you. So you'll just have to make do with the ones I did remember.

My mom's great-grandmother used to make her peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I make mine the same way my mom learned, by mashing the peanut butter and banana together. After almost 15 years of marriage, my hubby who will eat anything, still has yet to try one. Thomas just discovered the yummy gooeyness of a good peanut butter and banana sandwich and wanted to share it with his daddy. David absolutely refused. Then a couple days later, we had spinach and cheese pasta for dinner. Thomas tried it and liked it. As he ate it, he said, "Daddy since I tried this green pasta, you need to try the peanut butter and banana sandwich." David said he guessed Thomas would never have to try anything new again because he wasn't about to do that.

The boys and I were at Discount Tire last week getting a new tire put on my van, what a joy that was to make not one, not two, but three trips to Discount Tire over the course of two days, but I digress. Jonathan was in the stroller and Thomas was sitting on my lap sharing some freeze dried apples with him. Next to us was a morbidly obese woman. After several minutes, Thomas leaned back, and whispered very quietly in my ear, "Mommy, that lady is like a big round ball with a head on top." I whispered back my fervent thanks that he didn't yell it out loud and embarrass his mommy on an already stressful day.

Thomas has been playing soccer for about a month now. He tries and I think he likes it but it's not his thing yet. He has now progressed to running WITH the pack instead of behind it but he's not aggressive enough to take the ball away from anyone. If the ball spurts out, then he'll dribble down the field. It's only through the good shot timing and the magic of cropping that I got shots on my other blog that make it look like he's really good, but we know the truth. :-) Now t-ball on the other hand, is a little more his cup of tea. You don't have to take the ball from anyone, you play in your own position and don't have to run with a pack of 11 other boys. It was only as he started trying to learn the game that we realized how complicated baseball actually is. He can field the ball pretty well. And he can throw reasonably well, but he's just not a fast runner. Running bases is hard. When do you go, when do you stay? And he gets upset if he gets out. I was talking to him after practice the other day about that and trying to explain that everyone gets out sometime or another and that it wasn't anything to cry about, as he's been told "There's no crying in baseball!" He said, "Well, if you get out, are you out for the rest of the game?" It's a complicated game we Americans love.

Missing Grandpa

I'm a very lucky woman. I knew not only my grandparents, of which I had four+1 (Pa remarried after Granny died, so Bill is the +1) but I also knew 4 of my great-grandparents, and TWO great-great-grandmothers. I have friends who never even got to meet their grandparents. How lucky am I? Even knowing I'm lucky doesn't change the fact that I'm sad for myself, for my kids, for my mother, and especially for my grandmother, his wife of 61 years, that my beloved Grandpa is in Heaven now.

• I'll never get to see that twinkle in his eye as he tries, and always gives himself away, cheating at cards.
• I'll never hear him make that awesome train whistle sound with his hands.
• We'll never get to play Wii Bowling with him again.
• I'll never get to argue with him over who gets to pick up the tab for lunch.
• I'll never get to be on another road trip with him, have him slam on the brakes and honk the horn and ask us if we saw that elephant.
• I'll never have him walk me to my car as I'm leaving their house and spend 15 minutes asking me how many miles I have on it, am I sure I like driving a foreign car, and any other question he could think of to stall my departure.
• He'll never write any more poems for us or draw any more Mickey Mouses.

He is in a better place, and playing with Old Zackie Boy, and knowing that helps. I'm sad today because I found a song by the piano that I meant to learn to play for him and never did.

So I leave you today with a poem he wrote. This one is untitled, but he wrote it for my Grandma.

All she thought she really wanted
Was just a little kiss
As they sat so close together
Her thoughts he couldn’t miss
But that was forty years ago
Before grandkids and such
How can such a little thing
Turn out to be so much

Grandpa

I spoke at his funeral on Wednesday. I was nervous and emotional and was going to try to write something better here. But I'm stuck. So I'm just going to post what I've got so far.

I was very lucky to be his first grandchild. I had 37 years with him as my Grandpa. He was a special man.

Kids can really make you weepy and lighten the moment sometimes all at the same time. On Thomas' birthday, I was in Lubbock helping at the hospital with Grandpa. I called him early that morning to sing Happy Birthday to him. After I finished, he said, "Thank you, Mommy. Do we need to come to Lubbock? Is Twopa bad or good?"

On Tuesday morning, after his death on Saturday, we were driving over to Grandma's from Dale and Wanda's when Thomas asked me, "Why did Twopa have to die?" I explained that it was his time to go be with Jesus. He then talked about how Twopa was in heaven with Zack, our dog who died a year ago, and said, "Well, he'd better watch out!" I asked why and he said, "Old Zackie Boy bites!" After we stopped laughing, I told him I doubted Zack bit in heaven.


It was an honor and a priviledge to be there to help while he was dying. I could fluff his pillow and adjust it just right to suit his stiff neck. I could swab his mouth with a wet sponge when he wasn't allowed to drink anymore. And I could anticipate his needs and try to accomodate them: covers on or off, a Snickers bar, adjusting his position in the bed, time for more meds, etc. And as it got harder for him to speak and be understood, I was one of the ones who was able to interpret for him.


The day before he died, he had basically lost most of his ability to talk and couldn't get my name out, but as I walked by his bed on the way to get some snacks out in the hall, he pointed at me and said, "Her. Her. Her." Grandma was sitting by his bed, heard him and told me so I happily dropped my purse and sat and held his hand for a long time.


Although I wasn't there when he died, I'm so glad that my grandmother, my parents, my aunt, my two uncles, and two of my cousins and their wives were there by his bedside as he took his last breath. He was a family man and it's just like him to wait till they were all there surrounding his bed before he would go. As a matter of fact, the day before, I was in the room with him and his good friend, Bill, just the three of us, when he said, the loudest, clearest thing he'd said all day, "No! I can't go yet!" He wanted to wait till more loved ones were near.