I Remember.

Just 4 short years ago I was blessed to have all 4 of my grandparents in attendance at my wedding. Luckily, I actually did appreciate it at the time and truly did realize how lucky and rare that was. In the past 18 months, I've lost 3 of those very special people. Grandaddy passed away in April 2010, Papa Bob on October 25, 2011, and Nana just yesterday, November 12. Grandaddy just missed Max's birth by a few months. I'm so sad that Max never got a chance to meet him, but he'll always be one of Grandaddy's namesakes since we gave him Allen as his middle name in honor of Grandaddy. Even though Max won't remember Nana or Papa Bob, I am thankful that they both lived long enough to see him and I think that the times that they were around Max in their final year gave them some moments of happiness. As for Mema, I'm pretty sure that Max will have lots of memories of his great-grandmother, because she's not going anywhere anytime soon!

I've been thinking a lot over the past few weeks about the three grandparents I've recently lost. It's amazing (and wonderful) how once you lose someone, the memories come flooding back. I'm so thankful that I was able to spend so much time with my grandparents growing up, and that I have so many special memories of them. These are some things that I hope I will always remember:

Grandaddy:

Grandaddy with granddaughter Brittany at my wedding on 8/4/07

• I literally remember Grandaddy bouncing me on his knee when I was little. He played an aggressive game of "this little horsey went to town...this little horsey fell down" and I loved it. I think it was especially fun because of his knobby knees. Max also loves an aggressive bounce...maybe he did get this from me.
• I don't know how many years we actually did this, and I must have been really small, but I remember at Christmas-time we would load up in a trailer on the back of Grandaddy's tractor and he would pull us into the woods at his house and we would chop down a tree to use as our Christmas tree. This always seemed like such a big adventure and Grandaddy always took his tractor driving very seriously.
• Grandaddy had the corniest sense of humor on earth. Most of his jokes were only remotely funny, but he never stopped telling them, and he was always smiling. I think whether the joke was funny was actually beside the point. His favorite was probably his "tax shelter" joke - he would pull out this little wooden doo-dad he had made; it was a little arch of wood with a pair of thumb tacks underneath. Grandaddy would ask someone/anyone "Any idea what this is?" and if you didn't know (or pretended not to, even though he had already told you this joke a million times) he would answer "It's a tax shelter!" and respond with a huge laugh and a slap of his knee. You kind of couldn't help but to laugh along, even though it wasn't that funny.
• Some of the only times I saw Grandaddy serious were when he played his organ. I remember watching him sit at his organ with his back ramrod straight playing hymn after hymn - he almost went into a trance as he played. But when I was little, he was never too busy to stop playing when I entered the room. He would let me sit beside him on his organ bench and he would entertain me with the different things his organ could do. I loved it.
• Grandaddy spent hours upon hours out in his woodshop. Literally every time I saw him, he would whip some little toy or doodad he had made out of his pocket or out of a drawer and ask "do you have one of these?" to which I would always say "no", even if I did...I probably have 100 different toys and ornaments that Grandaddy made over the  years. I'm so happy to be able to hang ornaments that he made on my Christmas tree and I'm even happier that Max has a couple of wooden roll toys that Grandaddy made.
• When I learned to drive, Grandaddy was ready to help. I can't even remember where this car came from, but one day Grandaddy showed up for my driving lesson with this very old, very beige Comet. We had to heave and pull to get the old bench seat to move up far enough for me to reach the pedals. There was no power steering, and the steering wheel was boat-wheel sized. It literally took all my strength to turn the thing. It was summertime, and when we turned the air conditioning on (I can't believe it even had it), a bunch of brown and crunchy leaves shot out at our faces. But all that aside, Grandaddy was the most patient teacher imaginable. He never got overly excited and remained super calm even in the face of an unsure teenage driver.
• I'm really happy that Grandaddy was able to meet and get to know Chris a little bit in his last years. I think Grandaddy felt a connection to Chris since Chris is German and Grandaddy served in WWII in Germany. He loved to tell Chris the same story everytime he saw him of how a German woman threw out her dirty washwater just as Grandaddy was walking by her house and it got all over him. She was so scared that this American soldier was going to do something to her in retaliation. If only she had known that she couldn't have thrown that water out on a kinder soldier or one less likely to hurt her. Grandaddy always tried to regale Chris with his German language skills. I don't think I will EVER hear "Was ist los?" for the rest of my life without thinking about Grandaddy.

Nana:

• Some of my earliest memories of Nana involve her clothesline. I remember standing beside her in her musty basement as she loaded up her old rusty wagon with her basket of laundry and her plastic milk jug with the top cut off and full of wooden clothes pins. I used to love to run through the dry sheets as they hung on the lines and she always let me hand her the clothes pins as she hung up her wet clothes. That is so Little House on the Prarie, but it makes me smile to remember summer mornings with Nana and her clothes line.
• I went to kindergarten at Bethel Elementary, where Nana was the school librarian. Frequently after my morning kindergarten was over, I would spend some time in the library either waiting for Mom to pick me up or maybe waiting for Nana to take me home. I loved Nana's little office in the back, where she would set me up at a table with scrap paper (she always had tons of scrap paper!) and colored pencils. I distinctly remember one time having to sit back there with another little boy - Nana had sent him back there to sit because he was misbehaving in the library. As Nana settled me in with my paper and colored pencils she turned to that boy and admonished him "If you mess with her, you are going to have to deal with me when I get back". Nana was always a fiesty little thing!
• When Paul and Ben and I were little it seemed we were always spending days at Nana's and Grandaddy's during the summer. Nana might not have been a gourmet cook, but we sure did love her staple meal she would make for us: chicken, rice, and green beans (which we always called newspapers). There may have been one other item but I can't recall. What I do recall is the little blue bowls she used to serve the food to us in and how small those portions were. But Nana wasn't stingy, just frugal. She didn't want us wasting any of the food so she gave us small servings, but many servings. The three of us would compete to see who could eat the most bowls, and for whatever reason we would start off with bowl #1 by saying that we were in "kindergarten" and proceeding upwards with each bowl - whoever got to the higest "grade" would win our eating competition. I can't remember who most frequently won, but I can close my eyes and see the exact pattern in Nana's formica countertops, feel the hard wood of her bar stools under my bottom, smell the rice and green beans, see Nana standing on the other side of the counter ready to dole out refills, and feel my tummy getting stuffed as I tried to keep up with the very hungry boys.
• Nana spent a lot of time when I was little trying to teach me to sew. But just like my fruitless piano lessons, I never really caught on. When I went to my first prom, though, Nana made my prom dress. I have no idea how many hours she must have spent on that dress...it was 100% sequins. I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but that was quite a time investment she made in me. She had me try it on constantly. She wanted it to be exactly the way I wanted it. And it was. I loved it. It would be considered a purple monstrosity today, but for me and for then it was perfect. Years later when Nana was really starting to slow down she found some leftover sequins from that dress and she spent (again) I don't know how long poking those sequins with her arthritic fingers into a foam ball for me.
• Nana got to spend a lot of time with Max. Although I'm not sure she always (or ever) knew how he was connected to her, I'm so glad that he was able to make her happy. Definitely some of her last smiles that I saw were in response to him.

Papa Bob:

• Some of my earliest memories of PapaBob are from the lake. He was really in his element there - he loved it so much. I remember one particular trip when I had been allowed to bring a friend, Nicole. We must have been 7 or 8. We were on PapaBob's boat and PapaBob, always a jokester, was trying to make us believe that we could make the boat's horn blow by touching a particular piece of wood detailing inside the boat. However, it only seemed to work when Nicole touched it. No matter how many times I touched that piece of wood, the horn would never blow...but if Nicole so much as grazed it with her pinky finger it did. I got so frustrated, maybe even cried. But finally, just when I was about to lose it, the horn started to blow when I touched the piece of wood. I was so happy. That is the epitome of PapaBob right there. A prankster through and through.
• PapaBob made up a monster/forest wanderer/woodland creature? called the "Bonuddy" and he loved to scared the grandkids by sneaking out of the house and making strange sounds at the windows and then blaming it on the Bonuddies. He even had some type of animal call horn thingy that he used to use to make us think the Bonuddies were outside making noises. I don't think it was his intention, but I guarantee that none of us would have been wandering around outside at night for fear of a Bonuddy getting us!
• He always, and I mean ALWAYS had Tums in his pocket when I was little. I remember sitting on his lap and trying to sneak them out of his pocket. I thought they were candy. I still remember that chalky taste on my tongue and begging him for more after he had relented the first time.
• PapaBob was a religious watcher of The Price is Right. I'm not sure he missed a show for 20 or 30 years. I always loved staying at their house if I was sick and got to stay home from school. Mema would make me lunch and PapaBob and I would sit in his recliner and watch Bob Barker and his beauties.
• There are two things that I can still hear PapaBob say clear as a bell. If I ever tripped, or dropped something, or just did something clutzy or stupid, PapaBob could always be counted on to laugh and say "How's it going Ra?" sometimes followed by a "Hello!" I can still hear the exact tone of voice he used and see his big grin.
• PapaBob LOVED his dogs, Booger and, well Booger the 2nd. I can picture him sitting in his recliner slipping Booger 2 a piece of whatever he was eating and then petting her on the head. For such a "gruff" guy he was always tender with his "girls". He even spoke in a gentler tone to the dogs....I daresay it was almost baby talk!
• Every time I left the house, PapaBob and Mema would walk me out to the car. PapaBob could always be counted on for a sideways hug and a "Be a good little boy" as you got into the car. And then he would stand at the top of the driveway and wave until you were gone.
• PapaBob loved Max. Just like with Nana, I don't think he understood the connection of Max to himself, but he would tell me over and over again how cute Max was and how children were such miracles. I'm so grateful that PapaBob was able to attend Max's 1st birthday just 2 months before he died.

Although the past year and a half has left me with 3 less grandparents, it has also left me with a heck of a lot of appreciation for the 34 solid years I had with 4 wonderful grandparents in my life.