Memorial Day

So, Memorial Day tomorrow has me thinking about my grandparents. My mom's parents were amazing. I have such awesome memories of them. Fishing off my grandpa's boat and eating lunch on the dock. Grandma pressing a $20 into my little hand before we left for the airport and whispering "don't tell your mother!" with a smile on her face. The basket on the coffee table that was ALWAYS filled with candy. Not the nasty hard candy either, the good stuff like peanut butter Twix and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and mini Nestle Crunch bars. Yum! The house that was always warm and in the old days smelled like cigarette smoke, and in the latter days smelled just faintly like the smoke but more like the roast in the rotisserie oven. Even the TV always being on is a fun memory. It was the only time we were allowed to watch TV all day, and CABLE at that!! :) I remember the bed in the middle room. The middle room used to be a dining room in the compartmentalized style of those little saltbox houses. It still had a dining room table in it, but it was never used. The bed in there was one of the most comfortable beds I've ever slept on. And, I could see the TV from the door at the end of the bed that was always open a crack. As a kid I would lay at the opposite end of the bed and watch it until I was too tired to watch anymore. :) There were trophy fish mounted on the walls. There was a pretty little (ok, not so little, but in comparison with some of the others it was) blue fish that I wish I had. For some reason I liked that fish. It was my favorite. I loved lunches from Wegman's that Grandma would go with us to get. She would always make sure we got to Bill Gray's and Abbott's. SUPER YUM! I remember her saying at Abbott's "forget my diabetes! I'm having some frozen yogurt!" Haha! I remember Grandpa's huge metal belt buckles with deer or fish on them. He would always forget to take them off at the airport and would set the metal detector off. I remember the way he would say "hi honey!" to me and my sister. They were the same words Grandma would say but said totally different. I remember the flat feeling in my heart the day I was told Grandpa had lung cancer. It was not a surprise, he had been a heavy smoker, but it was horrible nonetheless. I remember the last time I saw him. Spring break (March??) 1999. I was 15. I wanted to go to Florida and was mad I had to be in New York. I will never fully forgive myself for that. The cancer was spreading and he was sometimes not in his right mind. I remember talking about going to Wegman's for lunch and him saying "Barbecue? We're having barbecue??" And Grandma, lol, just went off; "We're not having barbecue!! Who said anything about barbecue? Nobody said anything about barbecue!" We had to laugh or we would cry. We still laugh about it. I remember the day I found out he died. I was at school. Mom and Dad didn't call me to tell me. I happened to call after school to ask a question and pulled it out of Dad. I cried in the bathroom for 20 minutes. I'm sure people thought I was crazy or something. I don't remember much about Grandpa's funeral. I remember thinking that his casket was so "him". I remember the internment being so final. I remember Grandma looking frantically for Aunt Sandy who's headstone had been accidentally covered by the green fake turf carpet spread over the opening of Grandpa's grave. We pulled back the carpet so Grandma could see her oldest daughter, and could be assured Grandpa was being buried in the right place. I remember how three years after Grandpa died, Grandma got on a plane for the first time in many many years and flew out to see me graduate from high school. It was June 2002. It was so precious. When it was time for her to leave the ticketing agent at the airport asked me if I wanted a special pass so I could accompany her to the gate. (This was after 9/11 so the rules had changed.) I got to go to the gate with her and sit with her until they boarded her onto the plane. Just her and me time. She pressed a $20 into my hand as they were wheeling her away and advised "don't tell your mother." :) 5 months later Dad called me at college to tell me she had passed suddenly. The tears came freely. They still do when I think about it. So did the words "I see the Lord seated on the throne, exalted. And, the train of His robe fills the temple with glory!" I thought that is what Grandma is seeing right now!! How blessed is she! I also barely remember Grandma's funeral. I remember "Old Rugged Cross." The song still brings tears to my eyes. I remember the rain the next day during the internment. It was very fitting. I remember pulling back the green carpet to make sure Aunt Sandy and Grandpa were there and that we were burying her in the right place. It's what she would have wanted done. I wish I could go this year and lay flowers on their graves. Oh how I miss them. They would have loved Nathan. They would have adored Derek. They would have pressed $20's into his little hand and told him not to tell me. They would have kissed his little dimples. He would have called them grandma great and grandpa great. Someday he will see them in heaven I am convinced of it. But for now he will hear stories about them so that he will know that they lived and that they were loved by their oldest granddaughter. They were both World War II vets, but that is not how I remember them. This is how I remember them, how I will always remember them.