Sidney Lee Gall

I'm dealing, but I am heartbroken. My beloved grandpa passed away a little more than a week ago and I haven't really manifested how I really feel about losing him. 

Growing up in Lexington with my mom and sister, I was really lucky to have my grandparents in the same city. Like clock work we always had dinner with my whole family on Sunday nights, at 6- because any earlier was the middle of the afternoon according to my grandma. Me and grandpa were partners in crime, he kind of taught me how to get into trouble because I was always a really precautious kid.

He and my grandma married when he was 26 and she was only 17! (he found out she was only 17 when they were signing the marriage certificate, he said "You're only 17?! Why didn't you tell me?" she coyly responded, "well, you never asked."Her excuse now when i remind her that when she was my age, she was a mother of 2 is "it was the war, times were different!")They met when grandpa was in military intelligence in WWII. They had known each other for like 4 weeks, but remained happily married until he passed away at 90. They still "necked" on the couch until the last year, when I was young it was gross, now, i know I want that when I'm older.

Memories:

• going swimming at my grandparents with my friends and my grandpa always trying to embarrass me by hand polishing one of their life-size bronze female nude sculptures and singing "Tiny Bubbles".
• My grandpa drawing random shapes and challenging me to "Turn it into something", which I think is one of the things that got me interested in art.
• His stories from the war, which I always was bored by..but wish I could hear another.
• watching M.A.S.H. with him.
• Going on walks with him around their neighborhood even though I had to run to catch up with his long paces.
• Eating chicken noodle soup, Grandpa used to eat everything first, and save all of the noodles for last, but he knew it was my favorite too, and always let me have them.
• Spearmint gum
• riding around and running errands with him in his camaro, which was secretly the coolest thing ever.
• Kisses on the cheek and he would say "Ohh, that's the sweetest, dessert with no calories".
• His dirty sense of humor and the ability to make any woman blush, any age, any time. I remember at restaurants when the waitress would come over and say "Can I get you anything else?" he would always say "Aw honey, just smile".

I catch myself thinking about him and laughing, and then getting really sad. I alway saw him as this vivacious dashing man, like james bond, and he really was. But when I moved to Cincinnati to go to school he started getting sick, with the usual stuff, but worse and worse every time I went home. I felt guilty, I felt somehow responsible. This year it got really bad, when I saw him for the last time he was in the hospital, unresponsive, not my grandpa at all, he was always the strong one, and he was so weak. I feel so heartbroken that I didn't get to see him more and savor the time with him. I feel guilty I was such a shit when I was in high school, when I should have been with my family, not with bullshit friends. I wish he would have gotten to know me as an adult or the person I am now, and I knew him better, as a person. He did open his eyes and look at me, I told him I loved him, and he nodded. I think he really knew i was there. 

I worry about my grandma so much, she has never done anything on her own. When he would go away on business he would only stay for a day so they never had to spend a night apart. I'm scared for her to be so vunerable.

Change is scary..and things will never be the same which is terrifying. I think about him easily a hundred times a day and the fact that my thesis has been about the cycle of life and dying makes the closure a little hard, I know too much about the scientific stuff, I don't want to think about him as a dead body, it's really hard. It's hard to feel all of this at once just typing this.

I am going to end this post with my grandpa's favorite toast, which he says won him my grandma.

"Here's to your eyes that shine, here's to your lips divine. The further I've met, the latter not yet; but here's hoping."