It's October 31st 2018 and this has been one of the hardest years of my life. I've experienced the loss of 2 loved ones. 1 of which I lived with and whose death was so sudden and out of the blue that I'm still not ok over it. I always envisioned him being a 98 yr old man walking around his small but fruitful garden w/ a cane, ease dropping on the neighbors and living with Doo and her family. Something much like his mother, only less independent and casino prone, having out lived my mother by 10 yrs or so yet still grieving her loss and taking the time everyday to clip her a rose, a ripened vegetable, a random flower blooming in the yard or a bouquet of blooming azaleas that he'd take back to his small simple room and place his daily gift lovingly in the fanciest dish he could find within what was left of their belongings and sat just in front of her picture and to the side of the bowl he kept 2 glasses, one that was his glass of water and the other was hers. It had been a simple but loving tradition of theirs as long as he could remember to bring her a drink when he got home. It started as energy drinks and a pack of cigarettes when he would come in from work and through the years it took many forms her eventually quitting smoking and the energy drinks turning into coffee, tea, milk, juice or water, to finally him having to bring her water and feed her babyfood bc she was to ill to do it for herself. A situation which I know she absolutely despised, but was too sick to rebel out right on most days and other days she was down right the meanest, most stubborn, righteous, do it herself, prideful old woman to ever reach old age, which made him laugh every time at our troubles with her and think to himself - give em hell honey, don't hold back anything, God knows they didn't for us and it's good to see that strong, spitfire woman I love again. I'm pretty sure he actually verbalized most of that to her. Bc while I never knew Jan to be much of a talker, he'd always talked to her, usually informing her of the latest gossip or news concerning all sorts of matters but mostly on the people that were in their lives bc what did they care about someone they didn't know. I knew him as a quite, sneaky & meddlesome man (at least that's what I thought then, now I see it was his way of being in my life, trying to protect me and as an expression of how much he cared - why could I not see that before) unless he was asked and giving his input or got excited by something at which point he'd whoop and holler. His cheerful inputs, like "Noooooo" that got us kids to laughing when Mom was doing something, usually cooking, that he thought should've been done a bit differently or maybe it just looked like a good time to say it. He's long since given up the "Noooooo" of yesteryear but he still found a good whoop or holler cheering for Mom to do her worst to us on her more eventful days. For years before Mom passed they were finally sharing a room full time and while it was 2 adjustable beds pushed together, for them it was their one bed. His bed has since become a single to allow him more room to get around in safely despite his protest of moving any of her stuff. He missed her and grieved her endlessly and to his last breath which came exactly 10 yrs after her passing and every day every single day he picked her the most beautiful, best smelling or tastiest item he could find in the garden, along his daily walk or within her rose or azela bushes, he would walk them into their room as he'd done when she was alive and say Toni, look here what I found today or look at what I grew today or look at how big your roses are, sniff them and say whoo do they have a stink would you like to smell them today, offering them to her, knowing he had carefully removed all the thorns before bringing them in so she couldn't get pricked. He never said but he always seemed to like moms meeker, less able days. I feel it's bc he was needed by her, useful to her and it pleased him to be and do those things for her. After he would offer her his daily pick he would place it in the big vase sitting on the bedside table next to her, give her a kiss on the head, give her a sip of the drink he brought in to her before setting it on the table and sit down next to her in his spot and proceeded to tell her all the juicy gossip he'd learned while easedropping on the neighbors. A tradition he would continue even though the table had long since become his & the vase had long been broken in Toni's very last attempt to "do it herself" and where he has now set the fancy dish. The dish she had kept through all those years and one of her most special pieces that she had gotten from her beloved Nanny Bennett's passing. Nanny Bennett.... What a wonderful, caring and kind woman who couldn't speak a total of 10 words due to her losing her hearing at the young age of 3 to a very common, at least for those times, and had to have been horribly terrifying for all, childhood sickness. "The fever" is all I can recall from the one & only conversation ever had on the matter. A conversation that I started while on the drive from Nanny Bennett's house, having just left her home from one of pop's, or more appropriately, granny's daily visits but being with pop it was more like a quick check-in over a visit and probably bc he had 2 preteen gitty girls with him and was very much wanting to be done with the task of babysitting them for the day. But even so, looking back through now aged eyes, I see so clearly how genuinely she so very much loved having us stop in and how much joy it gave her. It seemed redundent then and coupled with my disbelief of her statement, I never appreciated her capacity and overwhelming light, love and joy at simply my presence. I wish I had realised then and told her what a remarkable woman she was, how much she would come to mean to me and how truly undeniably beautiful she is. Especially that last statement, bc she never once in all my visits failed to pull me over to her, look me in the eyes and began signing by pulling her hand down over of her face while saying a bit distorted but entirely understood, "purrrrty". I wish I had understood then all the things she was so lovingly saying within her simple gesture and misspoken word. I can't imagine living life from the age of 3 in complete silence and unable to communicate with your own, too self consumed to bother learning to sign, great grandchildren or the vast majority of the rest of the world. Being the wiseass little girl I was naturally I assumed that her son, my pop, would have all the answers to sate my curiousity on the matter. either just my pop and my cousin gencey as we or my pop and granny when I was somewhere around my preteens.
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