Grandpa Vern and summers past...

My mom called me today to tell me my grandpa isn't doing very well. They have taken him off his medication and his heart is swelling.... I guess it's kinda ironic to think that he will die for having had too big a heart... my grandpa is an amazing man. It's not that this has come on suddenly, or that his time has come to soon.. he will be 95 on december 24 and he has lived to see a whole world unfold around him... the roaring 20s.. the first cars...the great depression... marrying his college sweetheart.. war war 1, war war 2, the 50's and 4 boys...60's ... 70's and peacefully hippies... the end of the Vietnam war .. the 80's, bad haircuts, men wearing short shorts and grandchildren... the 90's and grandchildren growning up.. a whole new millennium, two great grandbabies and 70 years of marriage.... My grandpa Vern has had a wonderful life. But somehow that doesn't make it any easier. My grandpa is surrounded by all the things I love.. all the memorys of my childhood and innocence... summers past, first loves and lazy days on the lake. My family moved so many times I never had a childhood home... but the one place that always stayed the same no matter what state we moved to, was my grandparents home in upstate New York. They have a little farmhouse that was purchased for $10,000 as a wedding present from Grandpa Wolfor. Since then, other homes have sprung up beside their little place, but the garage is still an old barn filled with treasures... and once when i was little we found buried chicken bones on the hill by the creek .... and thought they were dinosaur bones. Until a few years ago they also had a cottage on silver lake that is my favorite place on earth... this is where the creaky staircase is .. and the fire that smokes... and the cornfeilds and overgrown pastures.. and hidden ponds and leaky boats.... this is a magical place where my grandpa put an extra handle on the wooden screen door down so i could reach it.... this is where i was paid a penny for every pinecone i picked up... where grandpa taught us to play croquet...and where 4th of Julys and lake of fires were always celebrated. My memory's of upstate New York and my wonderful grandparents and Uncle Mark are fondest of all childhood memories... and although I was there two years ago... i always feel like i should go back..one more time... to say goodbye.... I can still feel the early mornings at sixteen... the sneaking down the stairs... the slipping into one of grandpa's old flannel coats... and the stepping out into the early morning sunrise.... when the day is new... the air smells of alfalfa and dairy cows... my barefeet on the dewy grass.... the days possibilitys are endless.... and i soak up the feeling of being free... being home. Since we moved so much, I took to having things and people be home to me.. that way when we moved .. my sense of being home went with us.... my dear grandpa symbolizes my childhood home... my lake and cottage and upstate new york and all its memorys that are so dear to my heart. And now.. I feel as if i will soon lose a peice of myself. and that... is why i may be sad for the next few weeks. I am grieving.