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:: In Memorandum: Terry Baker :: (600 Reads)
Posted by
Dean
on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 09:49 PM
He was over 100 years old, and we've been missing him for some time since he's not been mentally present for many years. It was time.
Even so, I find myself a bit melancholy, and reflective.
The main thing I want everyone to know about my grandfather is that he jumped a backflip off of his boat every year for his birthday... well past "retirement age" ... that in itself made him awesome.
He loved his wife dearly.
I remember my grandparents used to take care of me when I was ill when I was young. I remember them driving me between my parents house and theirs, and being car sick and my grandfather talking at length about how to avoid motion sickness you had to stare into the sky, at a cloud or something, and how its an old sailors trick going back to long before Columbus.
I remember that coffee breaks and after breakfast naps are mandatory.
I remember how he loved feeding the 'coons scraps from the dinner table.
I remember (barely) a large blue tent set up in the backyard at the house down in the Valley (south texas, not california), and a small grove of ... banana trees? we used to play in.
I remember his love of golf. I just recently played Nintendo's Wii Golf for the first time and I was overwhelmed with the need to play golf with my grandfather, if only virtually. That was never to happen.
I now find my self with a preference to Bacardi Aņejo ... since he preferred it and named his boat the Aņejo.
Perhaps it was not the best choice to listen to "down-tempo lounge grooves" while writing this, it seems to reinforce the melancholy.
The funeral is the day after tomorrow.
My brother and I will be pallbearers. I feel for my father, and feel resigned to the idea that someday, I'll have to miss my father as he misses his.
I know I am fortunate that all of my grandparents got to meet my children- their great-grand-children. And I am glad that they will actually remember my mother's parents.
I think that is the main thing that this drives home. the lack of time. My wife and children are the most important things in my life and being present and connecting with them is the most important thing... but that doesn't keep me from wishing I could be more deeply interconnected with the rest of my friends and family.
there's just not enough time.
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