Visiting the Hospital
We went to visit my grandfather in the hospital. It does not appear that it will be very long before he succums to the cancer. It is amazing to see someone that was such a strong and healthy man whither away because of something no one can really control. While he laid there he would vocalize bits and pieces of conversations with no one in particular. He still seemed to maintain his humor although I’m not sure he was aware of it. My mom would ask questions or respond to things he would say to try to keep his brain working.
As I sat in the chair looking at him with Ryan in my lap I just thought of the times I would go over “Pop Pop’s” house and have conversations about gardening (one of his passions), carpentry (another passion) and life. Sometimes he would give me some leftovers from his lunch or dinner. The food was always incredible. He cooked simply but knew just how to make it taste great. His specialties were chicken cordon bleu, pea soup with ham, chicken soup among many others. And if he was feeling really generous he would give me some desert that mom made him. That wasn’t very often though…he LOVED any desserts she made him.
I flashed back to times when he, my mother and I would go fishing at “Mesamer’s”, a friend of Pop Pops who had a nice pond on his property full of bass and bluegill. We would always come away with a stringer full of fish. Some of the fish he would use to fertilize his garden, others he would clean for a future meal.
Since the hospital visit I’ve thought about the visits we as a family would have at Pop Pop’s. Seeing Pop Pop slowly declining. Early on you could see that he was weakening but being a very strong man he held his own. With each passing visit he became less and less mobile until evenually he would sit and talk with you between brief naps. It’s definitely difficult to see him like this.
The Wizard's interests include programming web features in Flash and JQuery, spending time with my family, playing with gadgets and finding deals online.
