"My grandfather is dying tomorrow, he's holding on to meet Aislyn" I had told her.
I stood outside my psychiatrist's office, staring out over the giant Lockheed Martin and the serene revine that seemed to glisten off the sun lights behind it. Joshuah came around the car, the sun's beams causing our little Suzuki to cast a gleeful glow. It was relief I felt, comfort to have him after a terrible visit. I handed him the prescription as I climbed in the car, "I'm done with this! She acts like I never told her I was breastfeeding, and now she is concerned for the mental health of the baby?! Done done done!" Post partum had not been kind to me, as it kept me up at night with cold sweats from mental images of my own death bed every night. I could not understand why this obsession was only growing more and more as the days went on. Josh was always one to be over the top supportive, I'm certain he followed my statement with slanders on the doctor and her unprofessional matter of handling her business. Her inability to take checks. Her insistence on my being extremely heavily medicated. The kids in tow we pulled off towards San Antonio so to make our way towards Big Spring, TX.
San Antonio would be a nice break for Ben especially as we invested in a pop gun and cowboy hat, and he ventured amongst the rivers and waterfalls excitedly discussing the Alamo, all at the age of three.
We continued on, and pulled straight from 87 into the veterans nursing home. PeePaw was in the back left corner of the Alzheimer unit. Mom led me and Aislyn down the hall as I had sent Josh with Ben to enjoy ice cream. He was lying in his bed, flat, not inclined like you would find most nursing home beds. He was curled in the fetal position, leaving this world in the pose of which he was created. Words were not something he spoke, and breathing was extremely labored. Aislyn was starving as I sat behind PeePaw and breastfed in a chair facing his back. Nurses came in and out offering me towels to catch excess milk, and I sat soaking in his soul. Mom kept convincing him he could 'go home' now. To just rest and 'go home'. What a nice way of thinking of it. Mom placed Aislyn on her belly across his thigh, "can you see her peeps?" He seemed so gone from this world, so separate from us, but he managed a wink. I held back tears thinking 'If I'm ever on deaths door it probably will not help my attitude if everyone is crying, they aren't the ones that won't see tomorrow.' I crawled onto the bed and leaned over his shoulders resting my face in his cheek, "I love you Peepaw...so much". Unable to speak he muttered under his breath what sounded so much like I love you too.
Leaving was hard, mom and I were a mess as she placed her cell phone directly into a cup holder, which just happened to contain a glass of water. I saw my Suzuki blaze past the desert sands and into the parking lot of, as Peepaw always called it, "The Ranch". We reconvened at my childhood home and Aislyn and I wandered into the back bedroom. Sometime passed as we played, and suddenly Aislyn grew fixated on a spot on the wall. I looked too and suddenly felt a sense of warmth and was consumed with thoughts of Aunt Peg, Peepaw's sister. She lingered for moments and then passed. I looked back down and at the exact moment Aislyn also seemed to shift her concentration, she had come for him. I knew then that that had been my last chance to tell him I loved him, and I was so glad I had. I knew that by this time tomorrow this world would be without the most honest, kind, loving, entrepreneurial musical, and christian man to walk this Earth.
We hosted the funeral at our house. All the family gathered, and it was beautiful. The funeral was not one of only tears, but mostly of laughter, and music. Country singers, cousins, and my brother stood and played guitar by his grave and in our living room. Children played, and his legacy lived.
