Grandpa Don

Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo. It was also my Grandpa Don’s birthday. He’s been gone for years now, but I still think about him all the time. I thought in honor of his birthday, I’d share one of my favorite Grandpa Don memories.

Back when Matt and I were first married, we lived in a tiny 800 square foot duplex in the outlaw biker/burned-out hippie community of Laporte, CO. To be honest, the place was a dump. The kitchen floor was built from peeling old stick-on tiles, the carpet was a million years old, the ancient kitchen appliances were all avocado green, and the front door was a recycled hollow-core door from an interior closet that had a huge hole in the bottom where the dogs had almost scratched through to freedom.

We didn’t have much money then, and we scraped by as best as we could. The guest bed was an old futon. We picked up the living room couches and chairs second-hand from an old fleabag motel that was going out of business. Most everything else we owned were mismatched hand-me-downs.

We had happy times in that house, though. It was the first house Matt and I ever lived in together. We were young and in love. The house was quiet, private, and all ours. The location was right on the edge of a horse pasture, so we could sit in the backyard and pet the horses. Plus, the rent was $300 a month, which really seems like an unbelievably miniscule amount of money nowadays.

Anyhow, one super chilly March Grandpa Don came out to visit us with dad and Olga. I had worked for an entire week in advance of their visit, scrubbing everything in the house down so that it would look as nice as possible. I scrubbed the walls, the floors, the bathrooms, vacuumed the carpets, and cleaned inside the cabinets and underneath the couches. It seemed like a pretty futile exercise, though. It didn’t matter how clean the place was. It never showed. The place was worn-in, run down in a way that could never really be made new again. (Without demolition.)

I was excited for my family to visit, but worried how everyone would react. When they all arrived and came through the door, I was nervous. I didn't know how they would respond to the old house, the old furniture, the old... everything. I didn't want to disapoint them. I felt pretty sure that I would.

When Grandpa Don came in, he walked around the house, surveying all the rooms. He looked everything over closely, smiling and nodding as we gave him the Grand Tour. When the tour was done, he sat down in one of the ratty old red velvet motel chairs in the living room and quietly looked around, as if he was taking it all in. When he had surveyed the entire room, he turned to me with a tear in his eye. With complete sincerity he took my hand and said, “I’m so proud of you, honey. You’re doing so well for yourself. This is a wonderful home.”

He was totally genuine, and in his eyes I could see that he really was proud. I didn’t need to worry about how fancy my furniture was, or how run-down my rental house was. He knew I was happy, that I had made a loving home for myself, and he was proud of me.

I’ll never forget that.

Thank you, grandpa. I miss you.