My grandfather was a great man. It has been seven seasons of flowers blooming, sunny days, the changing and falling of the leaves and seven snowfalls since he passed. He left us shortly after father’s day, the last gathering of his family he so closely watched over. His death was not marked by peacefulness. As his sickness progressed and we watched him suffer, we all knew the end was near and prayed he would gently slip away as he slept. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in February and passed by June of that same year. He tried chemotherapy which shrunk the initial tumor which in turn sent a blood supply to all cancer cells that had already metastasized. The cancer moved quickly and wrapped around his spine and then moved to his brain. It was hard on everyone, most of all my grandmother. My grandfather and grandmother had been married for 45 years. They were part of the Greatest Generation. My grandfather enlisted in the Navy out of high school, as many men from his generation did, and fought on a destroyer in WWII. He never talked much about the war and I guess I really did not ask which I regret now. When he returned home to the states he went to college where he met my grandmother and they soon married. A few years into there marriage my grandmother was one of the many unfortunate who contracted Polio as it spread across the United States. She spent a year in an iron lung while my grandfather cared for their two young children, my aunt and mother. She finally recovered and was released from the hospital. The Polio had severely damaged her central nervous system leaving her in a wheelchair, unable to walk. They spent many years together mostly good but some bad, raising a family and watching their family in turn raise their own families. My grandfather took care of my grandmother who needed to be put to bed, bathed, dressed, and taken to the restroom while caring for his children and running a business. He did not take any sick days or vacations away with the guys. He stood by her side as she stood by his side.

We were very blessed because many children never get a chance to know their great grandparents. Brice, my oldest son, spent many a days with my grandfather. I was a single mother and was required to work full-time to support my children. My grandparents were kind enough to watch my kids for me in the evenings while I was at work. Brice adored his great grandpa and referred to him as “Big Grandpa”. Of course my grandparents were thrilled to be apart of his life, after all, he was their first great grandson.

When he was first diagnosed with the sickness the entire family rallied and took turns taking care of him and my grandmother. Out of all their grandchildren, I was the closet to them, not only in proximity but emotionally. At the time, I was working afternoons so I was able to drive my grandfather to his doctor’s appointments and chemotherapy and radiation treatments. We never talked about his illness in the car rides to the hospital, we never talked about dying and what happens to us after he is gone. There was so much I did not know about the man who had been a fixture in my life since the first breath of air filled my lungs. He was a man who survived the Great Depression, served his country and went to war, lived through a president’s assassination, a missile crisis, raised two girls through the Woodstock era, lived to see a man walking on the moon, survived Reganomics, and watched, as the rest of the world did, three planes fly into buildings killing thousands on American soil. He was a vessel of a lifetime of history.

On the day he passed, in the early hours of the morning, I received a hysteric phone call from Ava, the nurse aide that had been assisting my grandparents through the nights. She told me that my grandfather had got up to use the bathroom and something was wrong, he was not breathing. I told her to call 911 and advised her I was on my way. Panicked, I scooped my children out of their beds were they had been sleeping peacefully in their cozy pajamas with their nighttime comforts and rushed over to my grandparent’s home. When I arrived, the driveway was filled with emergency vehicles and my mother’s vehicle. The next door neighbor, whom my grandparents where very good friends with, also an elderly woman who lived alone, saw me arrive and rushed out of her home and whisked my children into her home so I could find out what was going on. As I entered the home, the paramedics were gathering their equipment together and my mother was talking to the deputy sheriff who had also responded to the scene. I made my way back to my grandparent’s room. When I entered the room, my grandmother, who was still in her bed, was sobbing uncontrollably bellowing at my grandfather in anger and grief she was suppose to be the first to go. To the left of her bed, my grandfather lied motionless scrawled across the floor, void of life. It was just like that, as quickly as he had taken his first breath of life, his last breath had left him, dissipated into the air and was swept away by the wind. It was just like that, a lifetime gone. The emergency personnel gathered their equipment and left. I got my grandmother out of her bed and we made arrangements for a funeral home to come retrieve my grandfather’s body. By this time more family members had arrived and we all sat around the kitchen table in shock and grief awaiting the arrival of the funeral home. After what seemed like endless hours, in actuality it was about twenty minutes, the funeral home personnel arrived. They gently placed my Grandfather on a gurney, cleaned the mess in the bedroom from the horror of his death, and wheeled my grandfather out of his home. As they brought my grandfather pass us, they paused and gave us an opportunity to say goodbye. I walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek and told him I loved him. He was so cold. My grandmother was unable to look or say goodbye, I guess everyone grieves in different ways.

A couple hours had passed since the elderly neighbor next door had so kindly taken my children into her home. Her garage opened in such a fashion that it faced my grandparent’s driveway and you could see all the activity going on at my grandparent’s home through her garage screen door. I went over to her home to check on my children and update her on what was happening. As I entered the home, Brice, who was five years old at the time, and Gavin, the two-year-old were eating a bowl of cereal, unphased by the events of the morning. I told the neighbor that my grandfather had died which she was aware of because they had watched him being wheeled into the Hirsch through the screen door of her garage. She told me of what Brice, the five-year-old, had said when they put my grandfather’s body into the back of the Hirsch. Brice watching the activity in the driveway looked at the neighbor and exclaimed in excitement, “Look Mrs. Mocock! A limo has come to pick Big Grandpa up and take him to Heaven.” I kind of chuckled to myself and thought out of the mouth of babes comes comfort and solace. To a five-year-old, not jaded by the horrors and complexities of life, death was that simple. You are born, you live, and then you die and a limo picks you up and takes you to heaven. Death was easy for him to understand. His words got me thinking, at what age do we lose that sense of wonderment and simplicity? What happens along the way between childhood and adulthood when everything becomes so complicated?

Anyway, seven seasons of flowers blooming, sunny days, the changing and falling of the leaves and seven snowfalls have passed since he died. We laid him to rest at a veteran’s cemetery amongst many other brave souls who have fought for this country. In my life, people have come and gone. Things have changed yet stayed the same. The void of his loss never leaves my heart. I find peace in knowing the limo has taken him to heaven.