i’ve packed a change of clothes and it’s time to move on

This week has started off with a bang. Flying out of the gates, issues popped up here and there. One of those times where I am incredibly thankful for all the things I am able to understand and accomplish. Up to my neck with things going wrong, and everyone’s problem is more important than everyone else. At that point, I almost wish that I was purely stupid. I wish I didn’t know a thing. But, you put out the fires as quick as you can with the only two arms that you were born with. I go back into my office at the end of the day, fall into the chair, think for a second, and quickly pack up for home.

My grandpa Louie would have been eighty-five years old today. He left us almost two years ago. He was an incredible human being all the way. Just thinking about him makes me smile. There are so many stories that seem to just fly out when family gets together. So many of them that just make you laugh until your belly hurts.

When I was in high school, he would give me all sorts of trouble when I would be heading out with my friends. In turn, they would be getting ready for bed. “You going honky-tonking?!?!” A term that still creeps up with my family. An inside joke, if you will. However, I understand that grandpa did his fair share of honky-tonking back in the day. He and my grandmother would go down to where the big bands played and dance during the true days of swing.

Grandpa’s chair… It’s still there. It was his chair. When we would visit, you could always sit in that chair. When grandpa came into the room, you got out and let him have it. He would sit their and watch the Kansas City Royals. Novellas. The news. He would also take his famed naps. Grandma always hated for him to fall asleep in that chair because then he wouldn’t sleep at night, in turn not letting her sleep through the night. She’d yell at him from the kitchen, “Louie! Wake up!,” followed by a string of words spoken in spanish, english, or both. I would even take my responsibility to sneak up on him and help grandma out. Never really mattered. Once no one was in the room with him, he’d nod off again. To this day, that’s still his chair.

My grandfather is an inspiration to me. His passing was tough. It still is. That goes for all of us in the family. Perhaps it’s just something about families with hispanic blood, I don’t know. I say that because when he died, I’ll never forget the night of his wake. Pizza, beer, and laughter in the dining room of his house. It was very hard to tell that he was gone forever. It was a celebration of his life, and he deserved that. He was a great man, but those words are not good enough to sum up grandpa Louie. I hope to live up to who he was, but I don’t think that I can ever surpass that. He lived life in a totally different league, during a completely different space and time.

I miss him. I always do my best to take time and remember.