Sadly, my sweet and wonderful Grandpa died last night after struggling with Alzheimer's for a number of years. The picture above was taken on Thanksgiving 1977 at a family reunion. That big, fat baby looking so happy in the picture is me! Even then I adored Grandpa, just like everyone else who knew him.
Grandpa had a distinguished career as a well-respected psychiatrist at the Cleveland Clinic. But, in addition to being an incredible and much loved doctor, he was also a really fun and much loved grandpa. Every Christmas we piled into some large vehicle at some ungodly hour in the morning and drove from Louisiana to Cleveland, OH to see Virginia and Grandpa. The long drive, which usually involved some sort of family drama along the way and always was divided in half by a stay in a Howard Johnson (Mom and Dad in one bed, Kate and me in another and Will always on a cot) and a dinner at Shoney's (fried shrimp!), was always worth it because at the end was Cleveland, snow, and, the best part--Virginia and Grandpa! It was our custom to honk the horn as we drove into their driveway and Grandpa would always be down the stairs and waiting for us with big bear hugs when we got out of the car. He would usher us inside like we were royalty and fix us ginger ale. The wooden reindeer would be out on the back porch and the snow would be sprinkled with bird feed because he had a passion for birds and never failed to feed them. Everything I know about birds, I learned from Grandpa, including the silly poem about the Pelican:
A fabulous bird is the Pelican
His beak can hold more than his belly can!
When we were very young, he had two yellow labs who he named Charles and Diana. He had a picture of Winston Churchill above the kitchen sink and had great respect for the Queen, who he met once or twice during his previously mentioned distinguished career. Although he had lived in the US for many, many years, he was incredibly proud of being English and was thrilled when he found out we would be living in London.
He loved our grandmother, Virginia, warmly, thoroughly and until the end. It sounds cliche, but their love was great and true and what we all hope that we'll be lucky enough to experience. He used to tell the story of having just moved from England to the States and being set up on a 'blind date' with Virginia. 'Blind date' was not a term he was familiar with, and so when he met Virginia he was surprised that a woman with such beautiful eyes could be blind...over fifty years later, he was still enamored of those eyes and his strong and beautiful wife.
I think the most wonderful thing about Grandpa was how happy he made everyone who knew him. He always had a joke or a pun at hand and he even made learning good manners fun. He entertained us for years with his raggedy old puppet 'Blackeyes,' took us sledding, escorted us to the ballet, and made us feel like we were the most important and special people in the world. And he was one of the most important and special people in the world to us, too. I'll always see Grandpa, out in the road with his flashlight waving and waving and waving until we finally couldn't see him anymore.
