Groundhog's Day

I woke up this morning thinking about my grandpa. It feels like so much longer than a year since he died, and at the same time, just a couple of weeks since he died. In the past I used to call my grandpa on Groundhog's Day. I didn't know if someone who was widowed would want to be wished a happy anniversary or not, so I wouldn't say it to him. I'd just call and chat with my grandpa, and we wouldn't address the fact that it was out of the norm for me to call on a weekday rather than a weekend.

Growing up I was so much closer to my grandma than my grandpa, but relationships change when you grow from child to adult. Since my grandma died two months after I turned 18, I didn't get the chance to form an adult relationship with her. In a way, I think it was because of her death that my grandpa and I became as close as we did, since she wasn't there to serve as a buffer between us. Please don't think she interfered, because she didn't. It's just that dynamics change depending on which people are involved.

I miss my grandpa. I miss how smooth his hands were. How I could look at his hair and see the same wave in the front of his hair as I have in mine. That my great-grandma, his mother, had in hers. How he always spoke as if he knew. I miss that if I read the Sun Sentinel before calling him, and then mentioned something I knew was going on in Florida, my grandpa was always on top of it - he'd read about it too, and had an opinion. When we'd talk I could visualize exactly where he was sitting. If I called at his house, I knew which chair in the kitchen he was sitting in, with his back to the oven, and all his papers spread out on the table in front of him.

I miss my grandpa.