I woke up today thanks to an early Saturday morning missed call. I rolled over to see why my phone was vibrating across my nightstand Listening to the voicemail, her voice was sad. It was shorter and more sullen than her usual cheery messages. My mom is one of the only people who still leaves me voicemails. She asked me to call her back when I woke up.
In the last couple months we had received the news that my grandfather was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer and was showing signs of steep decline. I was already expecting the worst. He had opted to forego chemotherapy as the cancer had already spread so far and weakened him so much that they all knew he wouldn't be able to handle it. When I returned her call, she confirmed my grandfathers passing early this morning.
He wasn't the most personable man. He usually kept to himself and loved working on old John Deere tractors for fun. He had suffered from a major heart attack in his late 50s and nearly died then. They convinced him to quit smoking and we all thought he had up until about 10 years ago. We started noticing him disappearing to the barn to sneak a cigarette after Thanksgiving dinner or during the family Christmas celebrations. My grandmother knew, but chose to ignore it. The rest of the family didn't hound him about it too much either, he was a tough old man who had spent his life in a factory and farming. There weren't too many people that were going to convince him to stop.
Hopefully she never reads this, but... Since COVID lock downs started, my grandmother has lost her damn mind. I do not write this to try to cast blame on my grandmother, but to share a personal example. My grandmother, so terrified by the absolute insanity of MSM propaganda, refused to take the man to the hospital to have his normal routine checks. The checks that would have seen the elevated WBC a long time ago, that could have caught the cancer sooner. Thankfully my wife, kids, and I, were able to spend the evening with him one last time a week ago.
The man had an interesting set of challenges thrown his way in life. Many of which I will never know the full details about, but I could see it in his face that this world had beat him down. I never got to know him man to man, but his life and the lessons I have learned from it, have influenced mine greatly. He was a fun guy to be around and always had a way of making everyone smile even if it happened to be at his own expense. I hope he recognized my affinity for some of the things that he also enjoyed in life. I'm thankful his pain is gone. I mourn for our loss and will celebrate his life over the coming days.
As my family prepares funeral proceedings bare with me as I attempt to juggle this as well as attempting to highlight and summarize the news. Also of note, the shoulder injury I sustained in March did not heal correctly and I am scheduled for a rotator cuff surgery in mid Nov. The procedure will have me in a sling for a couple weeks. I am planning on working through it but not sure how recovery will affect everything just yet.
