A sad remembrance day

This morning I was thinking a lot about my grandad and losing weight. This post is a lot of rambling because I'm just kind of typing out my thoughts and we all know how random I can be.

For those of you who don't know, he passed away in Feb 2007 from Alzheimers. I miss him every single day.

I need to give a bit of background, for those who don't know. I moved in with my grandparents when I was 16. My home life with my mom was intolerable, and it was the only thing I could do to stay sane (not that I was that sane anyway...lol). So I went from a home where I had no parent around most of the time and basically raised myself, to a home where my grandparents were there ALL.THE.TIME. It was a crazy hard adjustment, so we fought a lot. He was also the most stubborn man in the world, and didn't exactly want to let me be as independent as I was used to being. So I remember that my grandma went to bat for me a lot as far as going places, etc. But I loved him dearly despite that. I wasn't raised around my dad, and so he was the male figure in my life.

Before he got really bad off, he would often make comments about my weight, on how I could stand to miss a meal, etc. It was a lot of stuff that I had to learn to shake off, we didn't know then just how bad he was getting. When he did get bad off, there were a LOT more comments about my weight, to the point where I almost didn't want to go over there. My grandma intervened in a lot of them. This all sounds really bad about my grandad, but he was sick, and we didn't know it quite back then. I've come to accept that a lot of it was the illness talking.

This morning I was thinking about my weight loss, and it came to mind that I really hope he can see me from up in Heaven. I wonder all the time if he can see the good I'm doing, and see that I AM losing this weight, even if it wasn't in his timing. It also saddens me that D never really got to know him. By the time I got D, my grandad was pretty far gone. They shared a sweet moment once when D went over to him in his chair, but for the most part, I don't think either of them realized who the other was. And I can still tell in D's behavior at my grandma's house that he recognizes that something was wrong in some of the rooms, like he will NOT go in my grandma's bedroom (where my grandad was), and he usually wants someone to go with him into the back bedroom to get his hot wheels cars, but I know he doesn't know why he does that.

I think today is just a "I miss my grandad" sad day today. I pray he can see how my grandma is handling things with him gone, and that he's proud of her. She devoted her life to him in his illness, and refused to let him go into a facility, when it would have been the easy way out. I'm so proud of her for standing strong through the abuse she took. HE was not an abusive person by any means, but I know there were moments in his illness where he would say things that were mean or he would lash out at her. And she stuck by his side til the very end. THATS a marriage and a commitment.

I need to stop this post, I'm getting weepy at work, and I have all male coworkers...they wouldn't understand...lol I just want to say, I love you, Grandad...I'll miss you for the rest of my life, and I pray that I can show D how to be a man like you were.