I haven't written in quite a while and today I realized why...I am in a time of mourning. Mourning over the impending loss and finally the loss of not only one the worlds most remarkable people but also one of the most important people in my life; my Grandfather.
John Samuel Nevin met his maker and was reunited with his wife Letha, and brothers and sister and Mother and Father on the 25th of November 2009.
This day was also my Grandmothers Birthday. What better birthday present for her to recieve then to be reunited with the love of her life.
Since her passing in 2001, life for Granddaddy had very much changed but also very much stayed the same.
He bought a new house by the shore to be closer to me and the kids his Great grandchildren, but he retained the house that he built for my grandmother and their family all the while.
He still ate the same raisin bran every morning for breakfast and had the same peaunut butter and crackers dunked in two glasses of whole milk that he had been eating for as long as I can remember, but rarely made himself a real dinner. Dinner in the last eight years have consisted of our leftovers, meals that I specifically prepared for him, or covered dishes from his kindly neighbors. He hated to go out to eat and never did unless he was absolutely forced to do so.
Grandaddy was a child of the Great Depression and had experienced so much lack in his life he refused to pay restaraunt prices for food that he could easily afford any time that he wanted it.
I was able on occaison to talk him into frozen dinners which only served to make me feel better, because he would buy them upon my insistence when I would take him to the grocery but when I would go by at a later date there in the freezer they remained.
Dinner was always my Grans rhelm and she was a wonderful cook. Born and reared in Savannah, GA she knew what to do with a refrigerator full of groceries or a pantry with just the bare minimum in them. She made everything she cooked special and Granddaddy praised everyone of them with "That was the best ......... I have ever tasted! Why, it's better than my sugar baby up the road could ever make!" This comment would always incite a hurt and dejected look that were so honest and true, that they brought him to his feet and he would walk to the other side of the table and lean down and kiss her and pat and rub her back. Every singe meal that I ever had the pleasure of sharing with them ended like this; every one.
I know that he missed her terribly, but there was also another side that none of us had ever seen that he began doing and that was staying up late, eating lots of junk food and courting lots of little old ladies!
He was very funny about it. He was on the prowl, and he would get himself all cleaned up and go visiting. One summer my Aunt came up from Florida to spend a week with him and he got ill and it turned into a month that she stayed. On the day that her plane was to leave Hubby and I went to pick her up to drive her to the airport. When we arrived at Grandaddy's house not only was my Aunt dressed and ready to go, but so was he. We were delighted at the thought he would want to come to the airport with us. But he had other plans. He said a friend of his was picking him up and he was going to Miss .......'s house to visit her. He was soooo cute dressed in his best pants and shirt with purple stripes (my grandmothers favorite) a pair of purple suspenders and a straw hat. He was so dapper.
As time went by his illness's became more frequent and his doctors had nothing to offer him except comfort.
He was too old for all of the treatments designed for a young man but as the cardiologist told him ''Mr Nevin, we are all trying to get to where you are".
I'll never forget this wonderful man.
He formed and shaped me into the strong person I am today. It is his voice that I hear in my head if I feel I am not doing enough with my life.
I count myself lucky to have had the amount of time that I had with him, and that my children were able to share too. What a wonderful man, of such gentleness and kindness but with an added dose of firmness and correction when needed.
Oh God how I will miss him. At this point I cry little bits at a time. When someone says something about him, or does something like him, but true grieving, well I think that will be for the rest of my life.
I love you Granddaddy!
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