Thoughts of a Strange Grandpa

It's funny when people die.  You always get told the old stand by "I don't know what to say, but I'm sorry." Even I don't exactly know what to say, I guess I'm sorry it happened too. I feel almost as speechless as everyone else.  I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be crying to myself or just remembering the good times. It always seems worse when young people die because they missed out on so many great experiences - having a family, backpacking through Europe, driving cars, dyeing their hair, eating sushi, seeing the next Harry Potter movie - things like that.  But when you are really really old, is it more of a relief to die?  I know my grandpa was somewhere in his 80's and he had done a lot of things in his life, lots of things I'm sure I have no idea about.  I really didn't know very much about him, which I think is sad, but also some what expected. He didn't live around here and most of my memories stem from when he and grandma would snowbird to Nevada because Washington got too cold.

It's not that I don't have a lot of memories of him, I do, but they are all very similar to each other.  We really didn't hang out and chat about each others lives. I remember grandpa was very consistent at waking up at five every morning and having his cup of coffee, and I always wondered how he pulled it off, because I knew coffee was bad, but grandpa wasn't. I never really thought of him as unpleasant, but he definitely had a gruff way about him.  He did laugh a lot, but I guess it was more like a cackle followed by coughing.  He had his funny moments too, though most of the jokes he told I never thought were funny, I'm sure I was too young to understand them, but he always seemed to be commenting about something and then cackling over it. I kinda thought of grandpa as my older brother Ryan, except a lot more sane and not such a bully.  They looked strangely alike.  It's funny that I knew him all my life but he had already lived sixty + years when we met.

I have one particular memory of him that still makes me smile, it was distinctly different.  Grandpa had taken my younger cousin and me to Smith's one morning, I think with my dad, and dad had gone inside to pick something up.  Laura (my cousin) and I were sitting in the car and rather unexpectedly Grandpa started humming...do dee dum de do...well not exactly humming, but almost singing some really old really slow song to himself. Laura and I looked at each other trying to surpress laughter. Somehow music of any kind and Grandpa didn't seem to go together.  The idea was almost unfathomable and comedic.  Grandpa was kinda old and irritable, where did he ever get a chance to listen to music least of all repeat it? Funny how we view our grandparents.  That was my ten-year-old reaction at least.  It didn't make sense that grandpa could have ever been anything or anyone than who he was now.

My grandparents always had a bit of a love hate relationship (to put it mildly). I thought hanging out with them was somewhat risky because sooner or later grandpa would yell at one of us for something "Don't drop that there! Pick that up!  What do you think you're doing!" or grandma would randomly start crying over who knows what (usually after reading some Louis L'Amour novel).  Spending time with them had it perks though. They both seemed to like having us around.  Grandma would cook something, usually cinnamon rolls or clover buns and distribute them in all their freshly-baked glory and Grandpa just seemed to wander around looking for something useful to do and yelling at my dad about getting things done lol.  But they were family.  It never occurred to me that they were strange or out of place because they were family and that's all that really mattered.