A Day to Remember

This morning, I picked my grandfather up from my aunt's house and we spent the day together. If I learned anything today, it was that the only thing we ever truly need to be afraid of in life is having to regret not stopping and making time to create more memories with the people that we love.

There were sweet moments:
He insisted on carrying any and everything for me - from the fundraiser donuts we picked up at my daughter's dance school, to the grocery bags we left Food Lion with.  He even took my friend's baby carrier to her car for her when she stopped by with her son to visit today.  He helped my oldest daughter ride her bike and listened patiently while my youngest explained the plot of Harry Potter to him in 2-year-old jargon.  He pushed both girls on the swing set and made the appropriate (expected) complimentary remarks when they put their princess dress-up clothes on.

There were rough moments:
I wasn't able to convince him to eat more than one chicken tender for lunch and one slice of pizza for dinner, even though I know he loves both of those things.  He was worried about my grandmother looking for him and not knowing where he was.  He got stressed out towards the end of the day about when and how he was getting home.  He wanted to drive himself, but was frustrated that his car wasn't at my house.  At one point he tried to explain something to me, but ended up crying because he couldn't figure out how to explain it.  I just hugged him, told him that I loved him, and said that the rest wasn't important.

There are some things, however, that he KNOWS for a fact, and can tell you with certainty how he feels about them.   Here are a few:

1. He could not be a teacher "these days" because we are no longer allowed to paddle the students.

2. My younger cousin is "full of bull."  Those are HIS words.

3. If one baseball team is losing so badly to the other team that they cannot possibly come back and win, you are wasting his time (and "the good money that he pays for the cable box") by not simply ending the game right then, and carrying on with life.

4. The movie theater will never be making any money off of him because he will not be paying $12.00 to see a film that he can buy at Wal-Mart.  FYI - it cost $0.12 when he was a kid.  This was also a little pricey at the time.

5. No matter what, he knows he loves my grandmother.  He will tell you every time that her name comes up, "I won the lottery when I met her."  Of all the things he forgot today, he knew he hadn't been to see her since yesterday and wanted to know when we were leaving for the hospital.

No matter what, I feel lucky that I will get to remember today, spending time with my grandfather, and watching him spend time with my children.  They won't remember that he didn't call them by name because he forgot what their names were; they will remember that he helped them ride their bikes and pushed them on the swing.  I will get to remember his smile when they call for him to "Watch this!" and the sound of their laughter when he teases them.

One of the things that we talked about today was why some people end up having Alzheimer's, and some people don't. There is no satisfactory answer to that question.  Different researchers have different opinions on the matter, but the only real truth is this - The only way to live your life is to know that you never know what's coming next, and therefore, should take nothing and no one for granted.

♥M