His Hands (part II)

My grandpa and grandma had very different personalities. Each of them gave up a lot in order to be with each other and had to compromise every step of the way. Needless to say they did argue a lot, but somehow my grandpa was always able to laugh about it while grandma always stewed. My grandpa was animal lover. He rescued just about every animal he could and went to the pound often. His last dog (Alice) was his best friend so he took it very hard when Alice past away. He was retired and enjoyed the TV show The Price Is Right. Grandpa was ready for grandma to quite her real estate business and stay home with him… she refused. This, along with the death of Alice seemed to shake him up like I’ve never seen. He prided himself on his morality, conservative beliefs and generally kept himself away from trouble. Now he was desperate for attention and he was lonely.

Grandpa started to frequent the strip clubs in Wichita in order to get the attention he wanted. Strippers will tell you everything you want to hear. They’ll tell you how cute you are and talk about how great you make them feel. IT’S ALL AN ACT! If you walk out of a strip club thinking you’re going to have a relationship with a stripper you're delusional. The strippers in Wichita took advantage of him and he spent thousands on them. We later found out he bought them cars and houses to which should have been inheritance. Papa bear was slowly losing his mind too. He just wasn’t the same and I didn’t like this grandpa. He divorced my grandma and sold the ranch we all grew up with. A piece of my past ripped away. Finally, one late night on his way to Jezebel’s, an elderly lady pulled out in front him and they collided. He was taken to the hospital but it didn’t look good. At this point his mind was pretty much all gone. They had to restrain his large frame so he wouldn’t try to leave. My dad went down there to report what was going on and dad could barely talk to me about it on the phone . It was the hardest thing he’d ever seen. He told me my grandpa’s face wasn’t even recognizable due to all the bruising. Apparently whenever my grandpa saw his kids he would say the most hurtful things. I decided not go down there at the advice of my father. I got the call early the next day that he passed in the night. I was so mad at him for last couple of years of grief he’d given everyone but then I remembered those hands. I locked myself into the bathroom and broke down. I'd missed him... I'd missed him for years.

The funeral was hard. I hadn’t had to say goodbye to a grandparent yet but now I had to. My family was all in tears and even my in-laws. They had remembered him when he was good… when he was willing to do anything for anybody. Everyone remembered him when he was that giant teddy bear. Towards the end of the funeral my dad had a song play as they hauled the casket into the hearse. My dad who has never cried weeped on my shoulder and I needed to hold him. We cried together in a moment I will never forget. I remember my grandpa’s face in the casket looking nothing like him. This was probably due to the bruising in the accident. I didn’t feel anything because it looked nothing like him. I didn’t even believe it was him. I scanned the casket and that’s when I saw his hands. Those were his hands. The hands of a loving man that used to make the world’s problems go away when you curled up in them. That’s when I knew he was gone and on my drive back to Cassidy I looked at the dark prairies and remembered that mountain of a man, my papa bear.