In memorium

My grandfather died yesterday morning. He died at home in his sleep at the age of 99, and I don't think there's a better way to go if you fear death as my gandfather did. Here he is back in May, looking pretty good for 98:
My mom, who spent her summer vacation negotiating the elder health care system, deserves all the credit for giving him a peaceful way out. She is the definition of filial piety. I hope I can do the same for her when her time comes - many, many, many years from now.

I owe a great deal to my grandfather. It was thanks in part to him that I never had to worry about the cost of my education. He also gave me a car when I graduated from college, and that, combined with the fact that I was debt-free, meant I could leave everything I knew and loved behind and drive out to Boulder, CO to work in a bar. Boulder was where I learned to have confidence in myself, where I felt contentment for the first time, where I learned to live healthy and aware of my environment, and where I found focus as I figured out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. My grandfather was not pleased that I put my Ivy League education to use waiting tables, (he told me later he thought I'd wasted two years of my life,) but he never gave me a hard time while I was doing it - and I know he started tipping better whenever he went out to eat.

It's kind of sad that when I think of good things to say about Grandpa it's usually about material stuff he's given me. I know how much he loved me, (his acceptance of Anna as my partner is testament to that,) and he wanted only the best for his grandchildren, but he had a limited idea of what that might be. The big irony is he was so concerned about passing on some legacy that it got in the way of our having a better relationship, which could have been his real legacy.

The nice thing about grandpa finally letting go is that now when I think of him, I can pick a point in time and remember him as he was then, back when I was a kid and he was still fun. I can forget about all the years he frustrated the crap out of me by not recognizing I was an adult with a brain and just remember the Grandpa who would take me to play miniature golf, even though it offended his golfing sensibilites. I can remember my Grandpa who wore blue hats and hugged me so hard and made horrible puns and said "sweet sleep" when he tucked me in at night and asked me about my life instead of always telling me what to do with it.

Here he is even before that, long before I knew him, with my grandmother, whom I never met, because she died when my mother was young. In his most recent years, my grandfather remembered his first wife as a blond-haired, blue-eyed angel. It's nice how death can can make us clean up good.