Grandfathers and Kenny Rodgers

Those of you who know me in real life know how much I adored my grandfather and that I was completely  devastated was when he died.  I wasn’t devastated that he died, the man suffered so much and was in such pain that in a way, I was actually thankful for his passing (although no matter how many times I say that I still think it sounds HORRIBLE, even if it is the true).  No, what broke my heart about the situation was that my grandmother, cousins and aunts were by his side in Chicago and I was here in Texas.

Yes, I know that there really wasn’t a lot I could do about that and that airplane tickets at that particular moment in time were in no way financially feasible for me, but I still feel awful about it.  My aunt pointed out that he “waited” to hear my voice before he died.  My sister had just been up there for a visit, my mother had just left there to come live with me, my aunts and cousins were there daily, the only one who had not said goodbye was me.

Honestly, the only reason I called the house that night was because it was my grandfather’s birthday.  I knew that he couldn’t talk to me, but I still wanted him to know that I called.  I don’t know why it was so important to me that I called to say “Happy Birthday” and part of me still wonders if it was the right thing to say, but it was. 

Even though my grandfather had not moved in a great while and had been unconscious for days, Gina held the phone to his ear and I told him how much I loved him and how I much I wanted to be there with him and wished him a Happy Birthday.  It still sounds somehow inappropriate to me; wishing someone who is dying a Happy Birthday.  I  wonder to this day if that was just the tackiest thing imaginable and there was some” last conversation with someone you love” etiquette lesson that I somehow missed, but it was all I could come up with to say.

So, I said what I needed to say and when I was done, I heard my aunt in the background saying “He’s kicking his legs!!!”.  He had not moved in days and at the sound of my voice, the last person that he loved who had not yet said goodbye to him, he moved his legs.  An hour later I got the call that he had died.

So, on Monday when I was in my car and flipping from station to station I paused on something I would never usually listen to.  The classic country station was playing “Lucille” by Kenny Rodgers and I started laughing so hard that I actually had to pull my car over.

The reason I was laughing and crying like some kind of idiot?  Whenever a Kenny Rodgers song came on the radio (and that was quite often in the late 70’s early 80’s) my grandfather used to announce to everyone within earshot that “That son-of-a-bitch should have sang ‘Lucille’ and died“, and let me tell you….he was pretty damn serious about the whole thing. 

Oh…and I always wondered how in the hell someone could have 400 children, but apparently, for 30 freaking years, I have been singing the wrong damn lyrics to this song.  It’s not “400 children”, it’s “4 hungry children”.  Yeah..somewhere my grandfather is laughing his ass off at me