For Grandpa, from Lyssa

Grandpa and Grandma visiting my Preschool class for my 5th birthday.

Father's Day card I made for my grandpa.

I’ve written a 4,000-word research paper comparing "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Their Eyes Were Watching God". And turned in election stories under the pressure of late-night deadlines.  But nothing was as difficult as writing about my grandpa. It’s hard to epitomize a constant – a person who has  always been there in the backdrop of my life. 

And now he has gone.

It’s as though the sun stopped shining or the birds forgot how to sing. How do I begin to comprehend a life without my grandpa? He’s been a witness to my minuscule moments as well as the milestones. 

​There was no mistaking my grandpa’s split-pea green Mazda in the carline after school – the doors were always wide open waiting to carry me home.

To think, I was embarrassed. I didn’t want my classmates to see that he had a habit of hoarding things.

The backseat doubled as a closet with an array of jackets slung on top of the headrest. Packs of bottled sweet tea shared leg room with my feet. Close the doors, I told him, but looking back, he was just excited to see his only granddaughter.

Now whenever I visit my grandma’s house – just five minutes down the road – no longer will I hear “Leeeeesssa”.  He would call out my name  even before I stepped inside the house.  His voice rang out like a song.

​Nothing could sound as sweet or as joyous. 

I’ve begun compiling a collection of my memories of grandpa – each one threaded together by our love for words. My grandpa financed my book addiction and we often ventured out to Barnes and Nobles, so much so that I recognized the employees.

We created our own language. Before the age of ten, I taught him how to mispronounce words. When he said yellow I said "lellow". When he said ice-cream, I said "ah-keem". But for some reason, he took my word as law forever using it in his daily vocabulary. 
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In a digital age marked by laptops and iPads, my grandpa had a typewriter. Just like his van and most of his wardrobe – it was also green. My mom says I take after my grandpa’s knack for writing and so his typewriter helped me spin my half-witted daydreams and long-winded lists.  

For someone who worked his whole life as a doctor, my grandpa had all the trappings of a writer. He consumed literature, studied philosophy and challenged preconceptions about the world. Even his handwriting written in black fine-tipped Sharpie resembled the neat serif font of a typewriter.

I always tell people, my grandpa spoke in prose. Are there any pretty butterflies hovering around the flower, he would say. It was his way of asking me if I had a boyfriend. It’s how he courted my grandma, he told me. Poetry laced my birthdays and Christmas cards and even our text messages. He wrote letters to me about his doctor’s visits and recounted trips with his sisters, my Lola Dada and Lola SuSa. 

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My grandpa had strong, sometimes abrasive opinions and he never held them back. But his writings softened his hard edges and his stubborn ways. Whatever faults and failings he had vanished when I read his words. 

It was clear that he poured his heart onto paper and loved me, my brother and all of his family so deeply. 

Every letter he wrote always ended with a yearning to meet again soon. Words gave him solace when we were apart. So I hope these words give him some peace before he begins his next journey.

I don’t know if I’ll ever become the columnist he wanted me to be, but I will learn how to speak my mind. Grandpa, I will make sure to hug and kiss Andrew for you. And I promise to take care of grandma.

It may be a long time before we meet again, but I promise we won’t be apart forever.

​You just happened to get a head start. ​

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