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R.I.P. Grandpa
May. 6th, 2018 08:26 amIt has been a rough six months. Friday, I was elated because we had finally gotten everything we need to finish codification, a project that has unfathomably taken longer than the eight months it took us last cycle, and I was preparing to work this weekend to see where we could get on the last few documents before Monday. With a little over two hours left in the day, I heard my phone vibrate with an incoming call from my younger sister, who hardly ever calls unless she needs something.
The call was short. She said Stephanie had called. Grandpa Gabby had died. No further details.
I tried to keep it together but couldn't. I made arrangements with my boss. I apologized and said goodbye to Heidi, since it was her last day and we were having a going away party that started in ten minutes. My boss said we were in good shape and not to worry about the weekend since they weren't going to make it mandatory to work. "It'll be okay. I'm sorry you're hurting."
Still, I left feeling guilty. Also devastated. Numb. Shocked. Full of regret. I hadn't called on his birthday in April. Why couldn't I get myself to do even that? What had we talked about the last time we called anyway? Oh right. I couldn't understand what he was saying because I had woken him up or he was drunk or something. Grandma said he had fallen recently and been in the hospital, as had she, but they were out now. She asked if I had put in an order for a baby.
Right... That's why I didn't call often. He was usually the one who couldn't go one phone conversation without bringing that up, or he'd start teasing me about something though I'd asked him multiple times over the years to stop. There were consequences to these calls, and it was easier to avoid them if I could.
Still, what kind of justifications are those now that we'll never speak again? How had I managed to make things so complicated?
We grew up across the street from them. They basically helped raise us from the start. My whole childhood, they were there, and they didn't move until I was in college or just fresh out. Every time my mom needed someone to watch us, they were there. For every major event, they were there. I can't express how intertwined our lives were or how many happy memories I have alongside the not-so-great ones that seemed to increase in the past decade. That's what happens with people who you're closer to than even your actual grandparents. How do you even begin?
One of my earliest memories of him is the smell of pipe tobacco. To this day, I only associate that smell with him and my mother's father, though he smoked straight cigarettes up until the time he was put on a ventilator. I remember his row of pipes on the mantle of their fireplace, though I'm still not sure when he stopped smoking completely. He was the only man I've ever seen smoke a pipe, which seems relegated to the past and whoever grows a hipster handlebar mustache and insists it tastes better that way.
Then there was the food. He grew up in the depression era and had so many stories. One about how he used to love mayonnaise when he first got to Texas and once ate a whole jar of it as a kid. After that, he said, he didn't like it as much, and I never saw him put a lot on sandwiches. They used Miracle Whip, though, which I never really liked either. No matter what, whenever we'd drop by, he'd ask if we were hungry and load up a plate of whatever Grandma had around: fideo or conchitas with lots of hot sauce and pepper, carnitas, tamales, homemade tortillas stuffed with refried beans and cheese or eggs or cheese or peanut butter and jelly or straight up melted butter. The food was almost always homemade, as they had owned a restaurant in Arizona before moving here. Anything put on your plate had to be eaten or you were wasting it, even if you weren't hungry to begin with. Food was love, and that was that. I still dream about their food and miss it fiercely.
Usually whenever we'd be there, the TV would be on. Reruns. Talk shows. Nascar. Boxing. Disney shows for the kids, like "The Three Caballeros". He'd sit in his easy chair or on the floor and ask us to do things for him. Or crack his knuckles and grab your bare toes and pop the joints. (I hate this to this day. That's how I found out I hate anyone touching my feet.) He'd lay on the floor and ask someone to walk on his back to relieve the pressure. He'd ask if you wanted a knuckle sandwich then show you not to put your thumb inside when making a fist because, "You'll break your own thumb when you're punching someone." He'd laugh and tease, saying how pretty and ugly you were in the same sentence or how smart and how much he loved us. He gave me the nickname "overqualified" in later years after I was valedictorian and got my bachelor's degree. He always asked if Mike (or whoever I was dating) was treating me right, echoing the refrain of "Boys are stupid" that he'd said my whole dating life. He'd tell me not to put up with anyone calling me names, hitting me or mistreating me in any way, which is a little ironic.
He called popcorn "parcan". Also, Pepsi was "Pexi". My siblings and I would try to correct him, and he'd say it several times before getting it right only to say it the other way again later on. I always chalked this up to him always joking around and a little bit to a language barrier, that the Spanish he also spoke got in the way somehow. I didn't know until my mom mentioned it a few days ago that this is why they called him "Gabby" though his name was Savino. She said that he had trouble speaking and they were making fun of his speech impediment he'd had since he was a child growing up around migrant workers.
His birthday was on April Fool's day, and I remember him tricking us multiple times on his birthday, turning out all the lights in the house and saying the power was out only to laugh when we'd go and try the light switches. There were candles that wouldn't blow out. Cards that wouldn't open. All the usual pranks. One year, my mom frosted a brick and gave it to him as a birthday cake. We all laughed as he tried to cut it, and she eventually brought out a real cake. I don't know that I ever actually wished him a real happy birthday without some sort of trick to it.
He had a primitive snake tattoo that curled up his arm, one he gave himself with pen ink and a needle but always said he wouldn't recommend anyone doing that. He always had family around, with his three biological kids along with one adopted runaway. Their grandkids were our friends and near cousins. We met many of their actual cousins as Grandma and Grandpa babysat us and took us to many meals and ice cream the next town over, places to visit, parades to watch, people to see. They had two adopted cats named Bimbo and Stinky, so-named because they found her at the dump. He worked landscaping for my mom while Grandma watched us and translated for the local court.
So many memories. Grandpa used to smile and say in later years while they still lived in Smith, "Thank God for Jeane and Patrick. Otherwise I don't know what we'd do." I wouldn't understand the context of that statement, or his daughter Mila turning to my mom and saying, "Thank God you will take care of them," at the 50 year anniversary party they threw, for a really long time. Grandma would say they needed to watch the house whenever we were gone. Even as teenagers, they didn't want to leave us alone and said they'd watch us whenever. It all seemed cordial and mutual, though my mom griped over the years about grandpa overwatering or Grandma not letting us go outside when it was hot.
It wasn't until I was an adult that it entirely went south between them and my parents. My parents owned the house Grandma and Grandpa lived in across the street, and for many, many years, they had traded babysitting and landscaping services for rent money. My mom did the math and said they hadn't paid the rent in years though we'd been out of the house for a long time and landscaping services had slowed since Grandpa's knees and health weren't stellar, so she asked for it. That one is not my story to tell because I know it's much more complex than I'm making it seem, but I know not too long after it all was settled, Grandma and Grandpa made arrangements to move back to Arizona, where they'd lived before moving to Nevada and so they could be closer to other family who had moved there.
I've seen them only a handful of times since then, and I've never gone down to visit. I've never had time or made the time. It'll be awkward, I reasoned. I don't even know the family much outside of facebook, and there have been slights on both sides, I've said. The last time I saw them together was our wedding, and as happens at weddings, we were only able to talk for a little bit before being pulled away for other things. I didn't know that would be the last time I saw him entirely. I didn't know the last conversation I'd have with him, which I avoided as long as I could after the miscarriage because I knew what his questions would be, I'd barely understand. I didn't know.
My mom said she found out from talking to Stephanie that he had Bell's Palsy the last few years, and my not understanding him suddenly makes a lot more sense now. Being partially paralyzed will do that to you. I feel bad that I assumed he was just tired or drunk when I talked to him and didn't get what he was saying, though he also liked to talk about whiskey and tequila and ask if I was at the bar. I didn't know. After his birthday in April, I got an invite to a last-minute surprise birthday party for his 80th birthday being thrown by his daughter. I declined because I had other plans that weekend, but my mom said that Grandma had found out about the party and shut it down because his health was already declining and he was not himself then. She said she's heard that he had an infection in the time since then that they weren't sure they could clean out or operate on or something. He had been in the hospital but had been moved to rehab and was doing better for a few days before his blood pressure dropped. They took him to emergency and said it might have been a stroke. Details are spotty, but he died there. He's gone now. Probably out of pain and in a better place.
I keep feeling waves of emotions: guilt over the things I couldn't make myself do, sadness over his passing, numbness in between. Memories keep washing over me, and I realize that I'll never hear him sing "Happy birthday, mijita" seguing into "Gloria, gloria halleluja" again. I know I told him I loved him last time I talked to him because we always ended the conversation that way, but I wish I was able to hug him one last time, to let him know I really meant it despite everything that's happened over the years.
I don't know how to end this entry, so I'll copy what I wrote after I found out:
Time sure moves fast, even faster than it feels sometimes. The older we get, the more it seems to speed up. One day out of the blue, something happens where you'll realize while looking through old photos how few you have with people you love, how much you would have liked to spend more time with them but kept making excuses, how even when it's hard, you should have made time because now there isn't any left. I'll cherish the many happy memories I have, but I also have a few regrets.
The call was short. She said Stephanie had called. Grandpa Gabby had died. No further details.
I tried to keep it together but couldn't. I made arrangements with my boss. I apologized and said goodbye to Heidi, since it was her last day and we were having a going away party that started in ten minutes. My boss said we were in good shape and not to worry about the weekend since they weren't going to make it mandatory to work. "It'll be okay. I'm sorry you're hurting."
Still, I left feeling guilty. Also devastated. Numb. Shocked. Full of regret. I hadn't called on his birthday in April. Why couldn't I get myself to do even that? What had we talked about the last time we called anyway? Oh right. I couldn't understand what he was saying because I had woken him up or he was drunk or something. Grandma said he had fallen recently and been in the hospital, as had she, but they were out now. She asked if I had put in an order for a baby.
Right... That's why I didn't call often. He was usually the one who couldn't go one phone conversation without bringing that up, or he'd start teasing me about something though I'd asked him multiple times over the years to stop. There were consequences to these calls, and it was easier to avoid them if I could.
Still, what kind of justifications are those now that we'll never speak again? How had I managed to make things so complicated?
We grew up across the street from them. They basically helped raise us from the start. My whole childhood, they were there, and they didn't move until I was in college or just fresh out. Every time my mom needed someone to watch us, they were there. For every major event, they were there. I can't express how intertwined our lives were or how many happy memories I have alongside the not-so-great ones that seemed to increase in the past decade. That's what happens with people who you're closer to than even your actual grandparents. How do you even begin?
One of my earliest memories of him is the smell of pipe tobacco. To this day, I only associate that smell with him and my mother's father, though he smoked straight cigarettes up until the time he was put on a ventilator. I remember his row of pipes on the mantle of their fireplace, though I'm still not sure when he stopped smoking completely. He was the only man I've ever seen smoke a pipe, which seems relegated to the past and whoever grows a hipster handlebar mustache and insists it tastes better that way.
Then there was the food. He grew up in the depression era and had so many stories. One about how he used to love mayonnaise when he first got to Texas and once ate a whole jar of it as a kid. After that, he said, he didn't like it as much, and I never saw him put a lot on sandwiches. They used Miracle Whip, though, which I never really liked either. No matter what, whenever we'd drop by, he'd ask if we were hungry and load up a plate of whatever Grandma had around: fideo or conchitas with lots of hot sauce and pepper, carnitas, tamales, homemade tortillas stuffed with refried beans and cheese or eggs or cheese or peanut butter and jelly or straight up melted butter. The food was almost always homemade, as they had owned a restaurant in Arizona before moving here. Anything put on your plate had to be eaten or you were wasting it, even if you weren't hungry to begin with. Food was love, and that was that. I still dream about their food and miss it fiercely.
Usually whenever we'd be there, the TV would be on. Reruns. Talk shows. Nascar. Boxing. Disney shows for the kids, like "The Three Caballeros". He'd sit in his easy chair or on the floor and ask us to do things for him. Or crack his knuckles and grab your bare toes and pop the joints. (I hate this to this day. That's how I found out I hate anyone touching my feet.) He'd lay on the floor and ask someone to walk on his back to relieve the pressure. He'd ask if you wanted a knuckle sandwich then show you not to put your thumb inside when making a fist because, "You'll break your own thumb when you're punching someone." He'd laugh and tease, saying how pretty and ugly you were in the same sentence or how smart and how much he loved us. He gave me the nickname "overqualified" in later years after I was valedictorian and got my bachelor's degree. He always asked if Mike (or whoever I was dating) was treating me right, echoing the refrain of "Boys are stupid" that he'd said my whole dating life. He'd tell me not to put up with anyone calling me names, hitting me or mistreating me in any way, which is a little ironic.
He called popcorn "parcan". Also, Pepsi was "Pexi". My siblings and I would try to correct him, and he'd say it several times before getting it right only to say it the other way again later on. I always chalked this up to him always joking around and a little bit to a language barrier, that the Spanish he also spoke got in the way somehow. I didn't know until my mom mentioned it a few days ago that this is why they called him "Gabby" though his name was Savino. She said that he had trouble speaking and they were making fun of his speech impediment he'd had since he was a child growing up around migrant workers.
His birthday was on April Fool's day, and I remember him tricking us multiple times on his birthday, turning out all the lights in the house and saying the power was out only to laugh when we'd go and try the light switches. There were candles that wouldn't blow out. Cards that wouldn't open. All the usual pranks. One year, my mom frosted a brick and gave it to him as a birthday cake. We all laughed as he tried to cut it, and she eventually brought out a real cake. I don't know that I ever actually wished him a real happy birthday without some sort of trick to it.
He had a primitive snake tattoo that curled up his arm, one he gave himself with pen ink and a needle but always said he wouldn't recommend anyone doing that. He always had family around, with his three biological kids along with one adopted runaway. Their grandkids were our friends and near cousins. We met many of their actual cousins as Grandma and Grandpa babysat us and took us to many meals and ice cream the next town over, places to visit, parades to watch, people to see. They had two adopted cats named Bimbo and Stinky, so-named because they found her at the dump. He worked landscaping for my mom while Grandma watched us and translated for the local court.
So many memories. Grandpa used to smile and say in later years while they still lived in Smith, "Thank God for Jeane and Patrick. Otherwise I don't know what we'd do." I wouldn't understand the context of that statement, or his daughter Mila turning to my mom and saying, "Thank God you will take care of them," at the 50 year anniversary party they threw, for a really long time. Grandma would say they needed to watch the house whenever we were gone. Even as teenagers, they didn't want to leave us alone and said they'd watch us whenever. It all seemed cordial and mutual, though my mom griped over the years about grandpa overwatering or Grandma not letting us go outside when it was hot.
It wasn't until I was an adult that it entirely went south between them and my parents. My parents owned the house Grandma and Grandpa lived in across the street, and for many, many years, they had traded babysitting and landscaping services for rent money. My mom did the math and said they hadn't paid the rent in years though we'd been out of the house for a long time and landscaping services had slowed since Grandpa's knees and health weren't stellar, so she asked for it. That one is not my story to tell because I know it's much more complex than I'm making it seem, but I know not too long after it all was settled, Grandma and Grandpa made arrangements to move back to Arizona, where they'd lived before moving to Nevada and so they could be closer to other family who had moved there.
I've seen them only a handful of times since then, and I've never gone down to visit. I've never had time or made the time. It'll be awkward, I reasoned. I don't even know the family much outside of facebook, and there have been slights on both sides, I've said. The last time I saw them together was our wedding, and as happens at weddings, we were only able to talk for a little bit before being pulled away for other things. I didn't know that would be the last time I saw him entirely. I didn't know the last conversation I'd have with him, which I avoided as long as I could after the miscarriage because I knew what his questions would be, I'd barely understand. I didn't know.
My mom said she found out from talking to Stephanie that he had Bell's Palsy the last few years, and my not understanding him suddenly makes a lot more sense now. Being partially paralyzed will do that to you. I feel bad that I assumed he was just tired or drunk when I talked to him and didn't get what he was saying, though he also liked to talk about whiskey and tequila and ask if I was at the bar. I didn't know. After his birthday in April, I got an invite to a last-minute surprise birthday party for his 80th birthday being thrown by his daughter. I declined because I had other plans that weekend, but my mom said that Grandma had found out about the party and shut it down because his health was already declining and he was not himself then. She said she's heard that he had an infection in the time since then that they weren't sure they could clean out or operate on or something. He had been in the hospital but had been moved to rehab and was doing better for a few days before his blood pressure dropped. They took him to emergency and said it might have been a stroke. Details are spotty, but he died there. He's gone now. Probably out of pain and in a better place.
I keep feeling waves of emotions: guilt over the things I couldn't make myself do, sadness over his passing, numbness in between. Memories keep washing over me, and I realize that I'll never hear him sing "Happy birthday, mijita" seguing into "Gloria, gloria halleluja" again. I know I told him I loved him last time I talked to him because we always ended the conversation that way, but I wish I was able to hug him one last time, to let him know I really meant it despite everything that's happened over the years.
I don't know how to end this entry, so I'll copy what I wrote after I found out:
Time sure moves fast, even faster than it feels sometimes. The older we get, the more it seems to speed up. One day out of the blue, something happens where you'll realize while looking through old photos how few you have with people you love, how much you would have liked to spend more time with them but kept making excuses, how even when it's hard, you should have made time because now there isn't any left. I'll cherish the many happy memories I have, but I also have a few regrets.
