I can't remember the year it started but for Christmas one year I gave one of those silly joke-a-day calenders to my maternal grandfather, Irving. He had a hilarious talent at telling a joke as if it were a long story. The gift seemed ideal for him. And it was. For years until he passed away in 1999, I'd give him a joke-a-day calender for Christmas. I got clever at disguising the box in its wrapping as every year he'd pretend to be pleased I had not given him another one and then he'd get one and we'd laugh and he'd promise to bug me all the upcoming year with each joke-a-day!
I miss buying those. Do they even still make them? The first Christmas he was gone I bought myself a joke-a-day calendar to keep our tradition going but it wasn't the same. Of course. I still have tucked somewhere in my underbed box of papers I can't part with, the last joke he tore off the calender.
My grandfather, Irving, was everything. He's one of those people you can't pin down and describe well enough because he was so much of it all. Wonderful and more adjectives like that. I sure do miss him and wow, it's been 18 years. How can that be? The passage of time moves onward. His love remains.
- - -
The years teach much the days never know. - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Comments