I was just eating a cookie in the bubble bath, thinking about someone whose quick wit and inquisitiveness remind me a lot of my grandfather…and as I’ve gotten older, I recognize that I have my own similarities to Gramps, too.
Gramps was a doctor and a darn good one. He was really good at listening to not just what his patients said, but what they didn’t say and what their body language conveyed about how much pain they were really in or how long they’d been feeling under the weather. His patients didn’t always pay in full, and sometimes they couldn’t pay at all, but he still saw them anyway…I remember in high school someone telling me how rich my family must be if my granddad was a doctor, and I said no, not at all…because Gramps would accept payment in corn or tomatoes or whatever the person presented when their pride made them want to offer something for his service when there was no money in their pockets. There were some very financially lean times in his practice, but he always took good care of his patients to the point that I still get thank you’s and compliments about the care he provided so many years ago. I’d like to think that I echo some of his compassion for others in the things I do, even though I didn’t choose the field of medicine.
Gramps was a complete smartass, but subdued. Gramps wasn’t a loud class clown sort, but he always had a witty observation to make, very tongue in cheek…he introduced me to Monty Python, something I still appreciate and enjoy years later.
He had his pilot’s license and he co-owned a plane. Gramps took me up in his plane when I was very small, and that was my first taste of both how big the world is and how much of it there is to enjoy if you just make the effort to be a part of it. Gramps was not a bystander in life by any stretch of the imagination.
He had an extensive music collection, ranging from classical to Willie Nelson to the Stones to Pink Floyd and everywhere in between. Gramps loved music, and he loved working on his wide variety of audio equipment to get the sound just right for whatever he was playing. Gramps got me my first CD player and my very first CD, and I remember how he wanted me to listen and notice the clarity of the sound compared to that of a cassette tape, and notice how the sound differed from the warmer sound of a record.
I’m a lot like him in the way that I always want to learn something new, and I’m also like him in my penchant for driving fast just to see what the engine can do. He never stopped learning about medicine or technology or music or anything else he could absorb; I can’t stop learning either or I feel like I’m wasting time.
Gramps passed away soon after my first year of college during a time that was especially tough for me in about a million other ways. If Gramps were around today, I think he’d be most tickled with the MP3 players that are so commonplace now, and I hate that he didn’t get to see how exponentially fast technology changed so soon after he passed away…he didn’t get to see the home computer or Internet or blogs or any of this that we take for granted nowadays.
Anyway. Today I miss Gramps. I think he’d like some of you guys a lot.
I wish I could have met your Gramps.