My grandfather died the other day.  He was 94.  I met him four times.  My grandmother is still alive.  She is 93 and suffers from dementia.  Last year, they were put in a home because they could no longer care for themselves.  They were married for 71 years.

I don’t remember much about my grandfather, except that he was a small, wiry man.  He was a commercial artist. He loved watching birds and took his camera everywhere he went.  He took beautiful photographs, but there were rarely any people in his photos.  Landscapes, birds.

He taught me how to fold cloth napkins, and he liked these big, pink mints that tasted a bit like Pepto Bismol.

When I was little, my grandparents flew out to Arizona from Michigan, and we took a driving/camping trip with them to Southern California.  Grandpa and I played hangman in the car on the way to Disneyland, and he could make the Teacups twirl really fast.

They came out again for my brother’s graduation, once for my other brother’s wedding, and once for my first wedding.  My grandmother gave me a beautiful rose gold bracelet that had belonged to her grandmother to wear as my “something old.”

During the week before my wedding, I remember watching my grandmother sit quietly with a book or crossword, waiting for her husband as he blustered and fussed around her.  He was a hummingbird; she was a cat.

“Doris, where did I leave my glasses?”  he bellowed, dashing from room to room.  She sat, still as a statue, a small Mona Lisa-like smile on her face, as he ran around her like a fussy chicken, until finally he was ready.

“Well, come on, Doris.  What’s taking you so long?” he said.  I remember knitting my eyebrows together, looking at her, willing her to say something snarky. We were waiting for you.  But she didn’t.  She just tucked her crossword into her purse, and stood, still smiling, still peaceful.

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