21 years ago today ...

Twenty-one years ago today, my grandpa died. He was 26 days away from his 71st birthday and 17 days away from meeting me.

From what I remember my dad telling me, my grandpa went to work that day. He came home and started feeling chest pains, and he was rushed to the hospital. My parents lived about an hour away at the time. It was an awful night - bitterly cold and snowing. My dad was going to go to the hospital right then, that night, but my grandma told him not to - that my grandpa was going to be okay and that, besides, it was too dangerous. He should come tomorrow instead, she urged. The next morning, my parents got the phone call that he had died.

I don't really know that much about him. In fact, I'm not even really sure what he did for a living. I do know that my dad greatly resembles him, from the pictures I've seen of my grandpa when he was in his 40s. I wish I had known him. When I was growing up, every year that January 31 rolled around, my dad would say, 'You know, my dad died today.' Or on his birthday, February 26, he would remind us that it was our grandpa's birthday. When I was little, I always remember getting so sad. I've always had a great memory for dates and would always remind him of so-and-so's birthday or so-and-so's anniversary. I wonder if he thinks that I just never remembered about his dad. I always did, usually weeks in advance. I would just hope that somehow he would forget the day, and then he wouldn't be so sad - but of course he never did.

I cannot imagine losing my parents. My mom's parents are still alive, but my dad's are both dead. My grandma died when I was eight. I remember that my mom picked me up early from school that day, and I heard her tell my teacher that I might be gone for a few days. As I packed up my bookbag and said goodbye to my friends, I remember being so excited because I thought we were going on vacation. I remember that she loaded Scott and me into the car, and as the buses pulled in to pick up the other kids from school, she told us that our grandma had died and we all cried.

I don't have a lot of memories of her either. I remember that she had a gum drawer that Scott and I used to visit every time we came to see her. She loved cooking and would always fix us pot roast and broccoli with cheese sauce. My mom told me that she would invite the homeless in for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. I remember one sunny day when I was around six, my grandma and her boyfriend Charlie took us for a car ride in the park. I remember looking out the window and seeing swans. My last memory of my grandma is visiting her in the hospital. It was just my dad and me and my aunt Marilyn. I remember saying goodbye, and as my dad took my hand and we walked out of the door, I heard my aunt Marilyn said, "Isn't she just the sweetest thing?" and my grandma said, "Yes, yes she is..."

My grandma was in the hospital on her last day, and she had been having trouble breathing. It was time to put in a breathing tube, and my dad knew she didn't want that. The doctors asked if she should be taken off life support, and my dad said yes. He held her hand as he watched his mother die. My dad had always been his mother's favorite, and he adored her just as much. When he came home from the hospital that night, he came in through the back door of our old house. I was sitting at the kitchen table and I turned around and said, "Daddy...?" And he raced past us upstairs, sobbing. I started sobbing, too, and I was so scared. I had never seen my dad cry.

After my grandma died, her house was lifted off its threshold and moved out to the country where one of my cousins lives. They razed the land and built an ATM and a circle drive in its place. I used to drive past it all of the time when I drove to Iowa to visit Leah. I couldn't pass it without getting a huge knot in my stomach. I can't imagine how it feels for my dad to look at his parents' house and see a car lined up where his bedroom used to be, with its patron waiting to grab money out of the teller machine.

Every night before bed, my dad would read a book to me. One of the books he used to read was called "I'll Love You Forever." It's the story of a little boy whose mom always used to say that to him. His mom would sneak into his room when he was asleep as a teenager, brush the hair of his eyes and whisper those words to him. When he moved out, she would drive to his house some nights to kiss him goodnight. But when she started getting older, her son would do the same for her. Finally the mother dies, and her son starts the cycle of saying, "I'll love you forever" to his new daughter. Basically, it's the saddest, sweetest book in the history of the world. Every time my dad would read me the book, he would begin to cry. I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't want my dad to be sad, so one day, I hid the book under a pile of quilts in my closet. He never mentioned the book again, and neither did I. I found the book when I was packing up my things to move when I was 14.

I love my dad more than anything in the world. If anything ever happens to him, I will die.