Happy Birthday, Dear Grampy...

I opened my eyes this morning and looked at the clock. 7:04am. My first thought, to be honest, was, "Yay, the kids slept in!" But my second thought was, "Happy Birthday, Grampy."

This is the first March 29th in my life without him. It's a hard day for all of us, I know. In my early morning fog, my mind wandered through the year. Last year on Grandpa's birthday, we found out he was in the hospital and a few days later we found out he had lymphoma--his abdomen was riddled with cancers. I was driving home from a spring break week in Utah when I found out, and wondered if I should turn the car around. I came home for 2 days, met up with my hero Richard, then we all left early Easter morning for Tucson for what may have been our last good-byes to Papa Bill. Turns out he hung in there for another (excruciating) five months.

"How did I live?" I wondered to myself. "How am I okay? How did I make it through the most dreaded event of my life? How is he gone and I'm still living?" I choke up when I let my mind rest on the fact that he's gone. He's gone. I rarely do this.

But then my mind went back to the tender mercies and kindness and support that were poured out upon me without my ever asking for them. The sisterfriends and their dinners and flowers and cards and gifts to keep my children busy and happy on the trip, my MIL and her activity bags for the kids, the Easter egg hunt she came and did with them at the crack of dawn as we loaded up the car, the phone calls and flowers and support after we got home and the cancer battle raged on, and the week he passed away, too...

And my husband who planned and financed the trip without my ever asking to go, who pulled it all together and loaded my grief-shocked self into the car and walked me through it all until I regained full consciousness.

And the baby who came just as Grandpa left, who is rolling and kicking and getting ready to make his spring debut, who took my mind off death and loss and set it on life and hope.

"I am so blessed," I thought to myself. The greatest blessing of all is one Grandpa helped me gain, and that is my testimony that I will see him again, that our family is forever, and that our relationship continues and will only grow stronger. Thank you, Grampy. Happy 86th!

The very last time I saw Grandpa--21 August 2010, at his 60th Anniversary Party in Tucson. He passed away 12 days later.