It was a weekend afternoon sometime in April. Grandpa died on Groundhog Day that same year. I was home with my year-old pup, Coco. We weere watching TV. As I flipped through channels, I came across that angel show ... the one where Della Reese is one of the head angels (not exactly Michael the anchangel).... Touched by an Angel... It just so happens that TBA was one of grampa's favorites. He had traded-in golf, football and basketball for that show and Home Improvement. He was always smiling at the end of either one like he never smiled with sports.
So there I sat, wondering what he found so enticing about TBA that would cause him to foresake Sunday football. As I watched, I saw what he must have seen in the show. By the end of the show, my eyes were a little misty. I hadn't cried much at his funeral. I hadn't cried much since his funeral. I realized that I never got to have a good cry about his expected death. The only Christmas I knew until I left home was the Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's house. He always had a fishing pole ready, in case an invite arose. He loved to fish. I remember the best Christmas gift we ever gave him was a simple jar with the label "Memories" on it. Each of his children, grandchildren and great grandkids wrote out 15 of their best memories on pieves of paper and put them into the jar.
The family sat around the table for no less than 6 hours reflecting, laughing, crying, mental-jousting, blushing about the jar full of memories as grandma and grandpa read them aloud one by one. Nobody was ever as excited about my new shoes as Gramps. He called me his 'Rascal,' a name he reserved for me. I cried for hours after he left my teddy bear on top of the station wagon when I was three (one of my earliest memories) and I swore that I hated him. Such are the priorities of a three-year-old. Christmas would never be Christmas the same. I'd never hear his voice call me Rascal. I didn't go to see him nearly enough for the last 5 years. He was the wisest man I've ever known. All of a sudden, the waterworks came on. I'm talking a snot-nosed, heart-breaking cry, a sobbing of the soul that sent chest pain radiating. I used so much strength crying that I had periods of apnea. My heart was broken. While I was sitting on my couch, copious snot flowing to the carpet (and not caring about the snot or the carpet... I didn't even know where I was).. I felt the warm chin of my pup rest itself on my thigh. I forced my eyes open and saw the heart broken face of Coco pleading with me with every ounce of caring a life can have. Her tail swayed gently back and forth, as if to fan away some evil oppressive spirit. That snapshot in time convinced me that right then, right there, nobody in the world cared more than she did. Her warm consoling chin never moved from my thigh until I cracked a smile and while my chin quivered, told her, "Coco, I miss Gramps."