Goodbyes

My grandfather passed away yesterday at the age of 75.  He’d been battling with his health for years, first with his heart and, more recently, his kidneys.  The last time I saw him, I asked him how he was feeling, and he put his arm around me and said, “Much better now that my little Polish girl has come to see me.  Jak sie masz?”  He liked that I was in Poland.  I’m not sure he wouldn’t have liked it better if I’d settled down up the street from him and had some children to bring by for visits every day, but he seemed to take a certain pride in scouring his memory for off-color jokes in Polish that he could relate to me, always hoping I would understand, no matter how many times I told him my Polish was quite weak. 

My grandfather was funny.  He sometimes liked to hide his humor in comments that sounded like grumpiness or annoyance, but then he’d give you a little wink so you knew he was kidding.  Often these particular jokes were directed at my grandmother.  After 57 years of marriage, he liked to pretend that he had to nag her constantly to get her to do anything for him, and then swat playfully at her as she said, “Oh, Ernie!” and then bustled off to find whatever he’d been hinting around for.  It was always clear he was a softie, though, because of the way he doted on the children around him.  Now, as I understand it, he could sometimes be a strict father, but as a grandfather, it was always about me getting what I wanted.  Somewhere, in a dusty box of photos at my parents house, there is a picture of my grandfather sitting on the floor while I walk and climb all over him as if he was a jungle gym.  It’s one of my favorite memories, climbing around and jumping off of chairs to be caught by my grandfather.  It’s something I do now, with my niece.

This summer has been a constant surprise. And several of the surprises have been nasty ones rather than nice ones. At times it seemed that just when I was starting to cheer up again, something else would happen to unravel everything I’d been planning.  And it’s a bit tempting to give in to that train of thought right now.  But I can look at it another way: one of the outcomes of this strange summer was an unexpected opportunity to spend a few weeks in the United States and visit my friends and family recently.  If all had gone according to the plan, I would be in Guatemala right now and would not have had these last few opportunities to sit with my grandpa and listen to his jokes, to hug him and have him say the two words he always  said, without fail, whenever we said goodbye: “Come again.”  Even if he had come to visit me, he would say this, but with a little chuckle.   However much I wish I could be there now, with my family, to say my proper goodbyes, I’m grateful that I got to say some kind of goodbye.  That the last time I saw him was only a week and a half ago, instead of nearly a year.