Godspeed, Grandpa

I just got word that my grandfather passed away early this morning. In August he was diagnosed with a condition called PML. This condition was brought on through his treatments for lymphoma, and he had gotten predictably worse as the year went on. My father tells me that, in the end, he was almost completely paralyzed. He couldn't speak, and was barely aware of his surroundings.

I have wonderful, rose-colored childhood memories of my grandpa. I remember spending time in the bar he owned when I was barely walking. I would come into the bar, and pull my toddler-self up onto a bar stool and survey the area. Every patron there would place a quarter on the bar. One by one, I would walk over to them, climb up on the stool nearest to them, and ask politely if they were going to use that quarter. They would donate the quarter to me, and I'd promptly head over to the nearby pinball machine and do my best to make the quarter last as long as possible. I remember being fascinated that he was also a volunteer fire-fighter, and even dressed up as a clown on occasion for neighborhood birthday parties.

He was always there with a smile and a story. If you had a problem, and mentioned it to him, he made it his problem, too. Seems he was clearly of the opinion that shared burdens are lighter, and shared happiness is brighter.

I am a jumbled mass of emotion right now. Grief is lurking in the background right now. I know it's there. I could probably shake hands with it if I were so inclined. It just doesn't seem to have much impact at the moment. I thought I had made my peace with his death a month ago, when I was told of his condition. At that time, he couldn't communicate in any way. He didn't recognize anybody, not even his sons. My grandfather was gone, what was left was just a shell that needed machine assistance to live. Then my dad told me a story of his last night.

His favorite song was El Paso by Marty Robbins. Last night, my dad and uncles were with him. My two uncles apparently are decent guitarists, and the three of them decided to try and sing the song for grandpa. After a couple of verses, they forgot the lyrics. From his bed, grandpa was humming along. The three of them continued playing, and noticed that grandpa's right hand and right foot were tapping in time with the music. It was the closest to speech and the most movement he had experienced in more than a month.

About an hour later, Joseph Love was truly gone.

Curse these nefarious percussion instruments!

So, drums are tough. After two days of playing Rockband on the XBOX 360, I can confidently say that I am a horrible drummer. I play drums as though I have an unfortunate combination of muscular dystrophy and Parkinson's disease. And still, I play the drums better that I sing in that game. I might be better than Carl Lewis, but not by much. Seems I'm decent enough with the guitar, but I've had three iterations of Guitar Hero to work on that. It's all good, however. My sister really enjoys the singing. She was quite apprehensive at first, but it didn't take long for her to realize that she's playing a video game, not auditioning for American Idol. And, once Weevil shows up, he can assume the duties of drummer. After that, we shall dominate the world!