Grandparents Never Die

My grandparents' house on Five Points

Every year, on August 18 and 19, I spend time thinking about two very special people in my life: my maternal grandparents.  Jack and Lucy Moore were very special to me, a very important source of love and support when I was growing up.  Grandma died on August 18, 1983, and Grandpa died on August 19, 1979.  Even today, I wake up and have to remind myself they are gone.  I think that is normal.  Of course I never forget they are gone.  Yet, I know on some mystical level, they are always with me.

They were married 31 years when Grandpa passed.  He had suffered a form of Alzheimer's back before much was known about it.  He basically had stopped talking, yet he always lit up when one of us walked into the room.  He spent the last several years in a nursing home.  Taking care of him nearly killed my grandmother.  Even so, she never got over the guilt of placing him there.  Yet there was always love there between them.  They were good together.

And they were good to me.  I owe a lot of who I am today to them.  I hear their voices in my head all the time.  That is how I know they are still around.   Love never dies.  

So today, as I prepare to once again move on after observing some time in meditative reflection, I pick up their smiles, senses of humor and contribution to my life, and say thank you.

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