Grandpa

Today I am not sharing any adventurous tales of my recent ambulance escapades. Granted, I have had a few lately but I will share those in another post. Today, instead, I speak to why I haven't been my regular blogging self in the past couple months. Yesterday marked 9 weeks since I received that painful phone call. Nine weeks. In some ways it seems as if it was just yesterday. The pain is still so fresh...as if I am still shakily holding the phone and hearing the news that Grandpa was dead. In other ways, the searing pain which has tugged at my being for the last 9 weeks seems to be enough pain to fill an eternity.

I have spent the last 9 weeks trying to condense the 69 years of my grandfather’s life into just one concise blog post. But the following is my best attempt at such.

My Grandfather ranks high on my list of most influential male figures to traverse my life. He was a charismatic man with an unending array of jokes and stories that he readily shared with anyone who would listen. From the time I was a young child, I have vivid memories of my Grandfather...all of them beautiful and wonderful.

Grandpa rose from the ashes of a difficult childhood in rural South Dakota. He knew only hard work and unwavering down-home values. His word was a good as gold and he was brutally honest in all things. He worked hard and made sacrifices his entire life...and he expected those around him to do the same.

My Grandfather had a brilliant mind and, even now, I am astounded at the unending knowledge which he possessed. Long before I graduated high school, Grandpa was giving me financial planning advice for retirement. He had learned from his humble beginnings that money was an asset to be managed with the utmost care and that debt was for those who were too lazy to think ahead or those who lacked the self-control to wait until the money was in hand to make a purchase.

What amazes me even more still was his knack for strategy. His ability to mentally map out a deck of cards in a hand of pinochle or strategize 5 moves ahead in a game of checkers was unmatched by anyone else I know. Some of my earliest memories of Grandpa were those in which a checkerboard was centered between us. I never won a game of checkers against the man. I remember too teetering on Grandpa's knee while he cleaned up in a game of pinochle. I would plead to stay up late at night and watch the adults in my world play cards. And years before I was even old enough to hold my own hand of cards, I remember being astounded at Grandpa's ability to somehow figure out exactly who held what in their hand and what they were going to play next.

My Grandfather was a stubborn man but he always stood for what was right and true. In some ways, the unrealistic side of me always told me he was too stubborn to die. He would go on forever simply because there was no other option. But life, and ultimately death, comes at us with cruel twists and turns.

Grandpa had battled with asthma since he was quite young. He never let it slow him down or stop him from living life to the full. However, last summer, during a particularly bad asthma exacerbation, he blacked out behind the wheel of his semi. He turned in the keys the same day. He did not view it as a strike against his pride. Instead, he saw it as the undeniable sign that the day had come to start his retirement. I often think that if he had not blacked out that day, he would have drove truck up until the day he died. He had done it for so long that I don’t think he could imagine himself doing anything else.

I think back on my Grandpa’s struggles with asthma. I know it must have troubled him every day when he got out of bed. And I wonder about the internal torment, both mentally and physically, it must have caused him. But Grandpa didn’t let the negative things of this world keep him from forging ahead. I never heard him complain about his illness and I never once thought of my Grandpa as “the asthmatic”. I thought of him as Grandpa “the truck driver” or “the world’s greatest card player”.

I think my grandpa’s unyielding determination in the face of adversity played a large part in who I am today. Grandpa taught me that if you set your mind to something, you would find a way to accomplish it. Careful planning and hard work was all that was needed. No obstacle was too formidable.

When I made the decision to become a paramedic, it never occurred to me how much the odds were stacked against me. I was young and naïve. I was from a tiny, rural South Dakota town. And I was plowing head-on into a male-dominated profession…many of whom were ruthless and were in it only for their benefit.  Even now, I think it took a little bit of crazy to get into this profession…and it has taken a lot of crazy to stick with it. But, giving up was certainly never an option.

I think back on classes and shifts that have reduced me to tears and made me want to give up the whole thing. And then I think back on my amazing family who always believed in me. I especially think of my grandpa, whose support came in the form of his wisecracks. (I know it sounds contradictory but if you ever hung out with my family you would totally understand.) Grandpa’s favorite joke about me being a paramedic was “Do you know why they call you paramedics?” (He enunciated it in such a way that it sounded like he was saying pair-o-medics.) He would immediately answer his own question and say, “Because it takes a pair of you to equal the brains of one.” It never got old…even though I lost track of how many times he told that joke over the years.  

The day I received the phone call about my Grandpa’s death, the irrational side of me said it was just a cruel joke…just another one of grandpa’s jokes. Even as I made the 700-mile journey back to South Dakota, I told myself it wasn’t true. When I went to sleep at night, I tried to convince myself that I would wake up the next day and everything would be back to the way it was. Even as I stood over his coffin and touched his lifeless hand, I mentally pleaded for him to sit up, grab my arm and then laugh hysterically at the shocked look on everyone’s face. All the while, the realistic side of me knows that will never be the case.

Grandpa is gone but he would have wanted us to forge ahead and remember all the wonderful things that made him who he was. He was not perfect but he did the best he knew how to do. And, I know that someday, he and my Grandmother will walk hand-in-hand once again. His lungs will be perfect and her legs will be free of the Parkinson’s that troubles them now. And, in the mean time, Grandpa's legacy will live on in all we do.