Whenever someone asks me my biggest fear, I always say the same thing: Time. Why? Because we’re not given enough of it, and it’s easily taken from us. It’s probably one of the Top 5 things I take for granted.
I’ve had this reflection more often as I’ve gotten older because I tend to spend a lot of time looking back, wondering if those who’ve passed would be proud of what I’ve done and the woman I’ve become.
My grandfather died 20 years ago today, and although we weren’t the closest, I like to think now, at 31, he and I would’ve had as strong and unbreakable a bond as I do with Mimi, my grandmother and his widow. We’d spend time reminiscing over family vacations to Walt Disney World, and he’d roll his eyes and shake his head after hearing my dentist found another cavity. (Sorry Pop, but I work in a candy store and I gotta know what I’m selling!) We’d probably go to California Pizza Kitchen every time I’d visit home so he could get his go-to salad chopped into bite-size pieces and a cup of split pea soup.
It's funny to think these memories only happened in the first 11 years of my life, yet they’re ingrained in me forever.
Like the time I wrote to the Tooth Fairy because I swallowed my loose tooth and had him sign my note because he was a DDS. Or the time Mimi and he hosted a huge holiday party for us and Pop’s barbershop quartet members and their families. I’ll always remember one member (shout out to Howie) who dressed up as Moishe Claus and surprised Ben, my cousins and me with a bag full of gifts.
And then the plentiful Disney memories, which if I name all of them, this post will soon become a novel. But I can’t disregard them completely.
Like the time our entire family decided to rent one 9-person bike at Disney’s Boardwalk — which, BY THE WAY, has the biggest hills in Florida — and we struggled to push the bike up those hills because all of us had the most uncontrollable giggles. Or the few Thanksgivings we’d spend in Orlando eating at the Wyndham’s incredible buffet. I’m pretty sure one of those trips started with Mimi getting pulled over for going 92 miles per hour on the Florida Turnpike in her bright red Chrysler Town & Country and my grandpa threatening to walk the rest of the way. Or the time we took a 5-day Disney cruise the year before we lost him.
It's hard for me to accept the fact it’s been 20 years because it sounds so long ago, yet it felt like it just happened yesterday. I know exactly where I was, how I reacted, how my parents and brother reacted, how my entire family reacted. I do know somewhere he’s sleeping until 11 a.m. but looking down on all of us when he finally decides to get out of bed.
Miss you and love you, Pop. Now, then, always, forever.