death
My grandfather died last night. He died at the age of eighty eight and his health was slowly detereating for the last two years with little chance of improvement. He was a tough but kind man, and his stamina was incredible.
I have memories as a boy riding in my grandfather’s tractor as he mowed his lawn. He owned three acres of land in Maryland, most of it woods, and I would spend hours there playing and exploring in the woods. My grandfather was also very kind to animals and he absolutely loved nature. He was constantly nursing birds with broken wings back to health, and in some regards he was an amateur veterinarian.
My Grandfather, Papa, was a Navy man. Before there was Radar, he worked as a sort of air traffic controller. He would be busy plotting the courses of the Navy planes that were in the air around the base, at Chesapeake Bay. Later he served as a technician in the first Radar planes. In the fifties his group would fly around the old Soviet Union block. They would play games with the Russians and they would occasionally be ordered to fly into their air space about forty miles and to fly out quickly. He told me a story where his plane was escorted out by some of the first Migs. Four of them surrounded his plane in near perfect formation and followed the plane and its crew for two hours. He said that he nearly crapped his pants out of fear.
After the Navy he owned his own Sinclair station until he finally retired during the nation wide gas crises of the late seventies. There he spent his time working on his land and his home in Maryland. When I lived in Virginia as a kid and early teenager, I would go on trips with my grandparents and my brother. They owned a camper, and we would take it and drive to different historical sites in Virginia like Monticello, go visit famous caves, and we even went to Hershey Park, Pennsylvania.
Later I moved to Minnesota and my Grandparents moved to Florida to be closer to my Aunt and her kids and grandkids. My grandfather’s last couple years were rough. In the Early fifties he had throat Cancer. President Kennedy’s own personal physician operated on him. It was successful, but years later he developed other throat problems. All of the food that he digested went into his lung. He would then have to work it out of his lung and into his regular system. My grandfather also had three knee surgeries, the first of which they couldn’t give him any anthesia for it. His hearing was also nearly gone, and towards the end of it, he suffered from Dementia. He couldn’t remember who he was and he got confused about the people around him. My grandmother’s name is the same as his sister, and Papa did not like his sister at all. It was bad when he started to confuse my grandmother with her.
I miss my Grandfather greatly, but he died close to his time. I am really concerned about my own family now in how we deal with this.
Papa, I am going to miss you.
"Life is an aimless drive that ya take alone
Might as well enjoy the ride, take the long way home"
~Bloodhound Gang-Take The Long Way Home
I have memories as a boy riding in my grandfather’s tractor as he mowed his lawn. He owned three acres of land in Maryland, most of it woods, and I would spend hours there playing and exploring in the woods. My grandfather was also very kind to animals and he absolutely loved nature. He was constantly nursing birds with broken wings back to health, and in some regards he was an amateur veterinarian.
My Grandfather, Papa, was a Navy man. Before there was Radar, he worked as a sort of air traffic controller. He would be busy plotting the courses of the Navy planes that were in the air around the base, at Chesapeake Bay. Later he served as a technician in the first Radar planes. In the fifties his group would fly around the old Soviet Union block. They would play games with the Russians and they would occasionally be ordered to fly into their air space about forty miles and to fly out quickly. He told me a story where his plane was escorted out by some of the first Migs. Four of them surrounded his plane in near perfect formation and followed the plane and its crew for two hours. He said that he nearly crapped his pants out of fear.
After the Navy he owned his own Sinclair station until he finally retired during the nation wide gas crises of the late seventies. There he spent his time working on his land and his home in Maryland. When I lived in Virginia as a kid and early teenager, I would go on trips with my grandparents and my brother. They owned a camper, and we would take it and drive to different historical sites in Virginia like Monticello, go visit famous caves, and we even went to Hershey Park, Pennsylvania.
Later I moved to Minnesota and my Grandparents moved to Florida to be closer to my Aunt and her kids and grandkids. My grandfather’s last couple years were rough. In the Early fifties he had throat Cancer. President Kennedy’s own personal physician operated on him. It was successful, but years later he developed other throat problems. All of the food that he digested went into his lung. He would then have to work it out of his lung and into his regular system. My grandfather also had three knee surgeries, the first of which they couldn’t give him any anthesia for it. His hearing was also nearly gone, and towards the end of it, he suffered from Dementia. He couldn’t remember who he was and he got confused about the people around him. My grandmother’s name is the same as his sister, and Papa did not like his sister at all. It was bad when he started to confuse my grandmother with her.
I miss my Grandfather greatly, but he died close to his time. I am really concerned about my own family now in how we deal with this.
Papa, I am going to miss you.
"Life is an aimless drive that ya take alone
Might as well enjoy the ride, take the long way home"
~Bloodhound Gang-Take The Long Way Home