Redheaded Jill

Today is August 31, 2023. Grandpa passed away exactly 6 years ago. Today I think of Grandpa. Let’s be real, I think of Grandpa always. I live in his house for goodness sake! But I especially remember him in August.

My Grandpa had red hair as a kid. He grew up poor, became a Christian so he could marry my Grandma (he was 20, she was 17), was drafted into the army, lost his first baby to a doctor’s error, went on to raise 6 kids and put them all through college (and one of them through medical school), worked as an electrician fixing elevators, retired, became the farmer he always wanted to be, and took care of my grandma all the while.

When I was 10 Grandpa had a brain tumor. As a kid he scared me a little bit. He was the best of men, but I remember thinking he was very serious and stern. After he had his brain tumor removed he softened. I was no longer afraid of him. I started sitting with him at church. He taught me to play Canasta. When I was the lead in our 5th grade musical be brought me peach roses and a music box with a hummingbird on it. I still have the music box, and it contains some of those dried rose petals.

When I was in junior high one day Grandpa came up to the house to get a drink. He’d been out in the woods cutting trees and cut a tree down on himself. I followed him back out into the woods and kept him company while he finished up. Thankfully he wasn’t severely hurt, but I worried about him.

I would always invite my Grandparents over for lunch on Sundays. No matter what we ate or where we went I made sure they had an invitation. If my family wasn’t doing anything special I’d go to their house because they usually ordered pizza hut or went for Chinese or a hamburger. One Sunday I was being a grouchy hormonal teenager and I was mad. I don’t remember who I was mad at, probably everyone. I remember I felt so out of sorts and so ugly, I think my mom had taken away my favorite shirt or something… (Too much black. But that’s another story.) Grandpa walked up to me and said, “You are very beautiful, do you know that?” Now, I struggle with accepting compliments or believing people when they give me compliments, but I never doubted Grandpa’s word. After he told me that I felt beautiful.

The day I got my first car (a 1995 Isuzu Trooper) I backed it into a tree denting the rear bumper. In a panic I drove it to my Grandparent’s house. (They lived next door to us.) I showed Grandpa and he used his foot to bend the bumper back into place. “Now nobody has to know,” he said. When I went off to college 9 hours from home the old Trooper wouldn’t make it. I was adamant I needed a car, so my Grandparents gave me their champagne colored Buick LeSabre. That car was an absolute TANK. But it did the job for 3 years of trips between Kansas and Tennessee.

When I was home two summers in a row I moved in with my grandparents to help out while Grandpa recovered from knee surgery and later a knee replacement. (He was literally caught. riding my bike through the backyard the week after he had new knees! The man was a legend.)

A year or two after I’d returned home from Alabama Grandpa was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. I was livid. He had been treated for fluid in the lungs and they had done a procedure to drain the fluid from his lungs a few months before the diagnosis. How could they have missed cancer? They had just operated on him. What kind of doctors were they? I promised Grandpa that I’d take care of Grandma. I wrote him a very dramatic letter while he was in the hospital. (As if I could do more for her than her six children but ya know… hubris I guess.)

The doctors said he had mere months left. He lived another year and a half. He continued attending church as long as he could. He eventually had to use oxygen, but he kept going. One day he shot a skunk that was walking through the yard. He used his cane to toss it in the creek. My mom worked tirelessly to get the skunk smell off of his cane after that. He sold his cows and sadly his dog was hit by a car. I think he’d have continued on another couple of years if he hadn’t lost his animals, but the doctors told him he was dying so he started to prepare.

My aunt moved in the last few months of his life and cared for him. She is a nurse. He had a hospital bed in the living room. Grandma would sit with him in the evening and they’d hold hands. He met my hedgehog, Jane and really liked her. She must have sensed he was ill because the little curmudgeon would cuddle him but nobody else. I moved in July 4, 2017. I told him good night every night and gave him a kiss on the cheek. I brought him beef broth when he wasn’t hungry, and coconut cream pie when he was.

The night Grandpa died I was in my room. My aunt came to tell me it was almost time. I told him I loved him and kissed him goodbye. I went back to my room and waited. My aunt told me soon after he was gone. My parents were there, my grandma was obviously there. 25 days later my first nephew was born, named for Grandpa. Grandpa never got to meet him, but he knew about the name.

Now I watch my nephews and tell them often about their Great Grandparents. There are pictures of Grandma and Grandpa on the fridge and throughout the house. Their name is still on my mailbox. I wrote a children’s book inspired by my Grandpa, the farmer. I attempt to garden in the area he gardened. I turned his silo into a chicken coop. My dad keeps cattle in the field Grandpa kept cows. We use the tractor grandpa used.

I wish that it was a western tradition to remember and honor our deceased loved ones. I don’t think we should worship them, and I don’t believe they become angels or ghosts. But it’s nice to think about them and know that you’re not the only one thinking about them. My family isn’t very sentimental, but I have feelings enough for the lot of us. I’ll go a couple miles up the road today and visit his and Grandma’s graves. I’ll talk to them and pretend they can hear me. I’ll thank them for everything and apologize for many things. And I’ll try really hard not to spend the whole day in tears.

In high school I wrote this for an English assignment, “One of my greatest motivations for being a Christian is so that I can be reunited with my loved ones someday in Heaven.” That statement holds true today. I am so glad for the hope of Heaven and that one day I can see Grandpa and Grandma again.