Grandpa and Christmas Eve
Dec. 24th, 2018 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistMy family spent every Christmas Eve at my grandparents' house until it became just my grandma's house. This is the seventh one without my grandpa but it still feels like there's a big empty hollow at the center of the festivities without him, because he loved Christmas so much. He loved having all of us there. I can still see him handing out the presents from under the tree, feigning surprise that we were good enough to get any presents. I can hear his voice, feel his hugs. He was such a big presence.
He had a long full life and died an old man's death: stubborn and resenting hospitals to the last (he was definitely a handful for the staff!) in his 80s. But I miss him a lot and Christmas still doesn't seem right without him -- to almost the same extent that it'll always feel wrong without my brother, who I had much more reason to expect to be spending more Christmases with.
The two losses feel very close together somehow, even though Grandpa's is as far away now as Chris's was when Grandpa died.
Today again my grandma mentioned the Vikings sweatsuit of Grandpa's that Chris always slept in when he and I stayed over (something we loved to do and which I still get homesick for). She gave it to me after Grandpa died, and I think of both of them when I see it.
I told Andrew just now of the year Grandpa and I looked at photo albums of bis childhood and mine. I remember him saying "I really miss Chris," something no one else in my family has ever said in my company -- I can read it all over my parents' faces of course, but only Grandpa said it out loud. Turns out I wrote about it at the time, and I'm glad I did. It turned out to have been my grandpa's last Christmas.
Grandma was on nostalgic form too today: talking about lefse and lutefisk, gatherings with her siblings for oyster stew at New Year's, actually going places in a sleigh pulled by a team of horses as a kid because she lived in the country and the roads would never be plowed, she talked to Andrew about how she doesn't like going on my family's traditional vacation because it -- the only thing my grandpa got as excited about as he did about Christmas Eve -- doesn't feel the same without him. And I agree with her there: it too still feels like he's just stepped out of the room, or he's down by the lake messing with his boat motor, and to not have him there with us stings.
He had a long full life and died an old man's death: stubborn and resenting hospitals to the last (he was definitely a handful for the staff!) in his 80s. But I miss him a lot and Christmas still doesn't seem right without him -- to almost the same extent that it'll always feel wrong without my brother, who I had much more reason to expect to be spending more Christmases with.
The two losses feel very close together somehow, even though Grandpa's is as far away now as Chris's was when Grandpa died.
Today again my grandma mentioned the Vikings sweatsuit of Grandpa's that Chris always slept in when he and I stayed over (something we loved to do and which I still get homesick for). She gave it to me after Grandpa died, and I think of both of them when I see it.
I told Andrew just now of the year Grandpa and I looked at photo albums of bis childhood and mine. I remember him saying "I really miss Chris," something no one else in my family has ever said in my company -- I can read it all over my parents' faces of course, but only Grandpa said it out loud. Turns out I wrote about it at the time, and I'm glad I did. It turned out to have been my grandpa's last Christmas.
Grandma was on nostalgic form too today: talking about lefse and lutefisk, gatherings with her siblings for oyster stew at New Year's, actually going places in a sleigh pulled by a team of horses as a kid because she lived in the country and the roads would never be plowed, she talked to Andrew about how she doesn't like going on my family's traditional vacation because it -- the only thing my grandpa got as excited about as he did about Christmas Eve -- doesn't feel the same without him. And I agree with her there: it too still feels like he's just stepped out of the room, or he's down by the lake messing with his boat motor, and to not have him there with us stings.