October 6, 2014 is a long way from October 6, 1918. A lifetime's distance, perhaps. If my Grandfather were alive, he would have been 96 today. I would be 26, and he would be telling me a story. But, today, I will tell you one instead.
I am 16, new license in hand as I sit behind the wheel of the old Buick, frantically trying to figure out just where-the-heck I've gotten us lost as my Grandfather tries to give me directions. He is nearly blind, but he gets us back to his mobile home. I am his chauffeur every Thursday night when we go to our favorite hamburger joint and order the same thing every time. He is my fellow adventurer.
I am 17, and my Grandfather's walking cane has steered him through the shadows to my bedroom, where I lie in the deep blackness of depression. He pats my back and tells me it will be ok.
I am 18, finding him lying sick in bed with ulcers that almost killed him.
I am 19, calling my Grandfather at 11pm from my college dorm across the country because it is 8pm his time, and he is waiting by the phone. He says, “I love you much.” Even when I think I don't have the strength to keep going, I know he is sitting there, in his own dark world, waiting for the phone to ring. And I keep going.
I am 20, Christmas Day, and he is visiting me in rehab, his worried eyes searching emptily for mine.
I am 21, sitting again at the kitchen table as he tells me about the War. I prompt him where his memory fades because he has told these stories a hundred times, but I still want to hear them – I want to hear about fighting the Germans and rolling a Sherman tank through Europe, about freeing prisoners in a concentration camp, about boarding the Queen Mary and finally sailing home.
I am 22, sitting with Grandpa in his living room, listening to him say he wants to go home now, to Heaven. How he wants to join my grandmother and his family. I sit with him five days a week because he cannot be left alone, and my heart hurts to see a strong man now so feeble. But there is strength in weakness, if you care to look for it.
I am 22, and I get the call. Come to the hospice. By the time I get there, he is in a coma. I sleep on a cot at the foot of his bed for four nights, wetting his parched mouth with moisture from a sponge.
I leave on the fifth day – just a few hours – but first I tell him that it's alright, that he can go. “I love you much,” I whisper through the moisture in my eyes. “God, please...let him go home.”
I walk back into the dark room, and this time something's different. I touch his wrist but I can't tell. “How do you know if someone's dead?” I ask the nurse outside.
His body is still warm, but his soul flies free. Finally.
I am 22. He was 91. He taught me what it means to love. To love much. To love despite the pain of losing.
Now who took care of whom?