My grandpa was and is the one true love of my life. What made him so special? At first I didn't know myself. But as I became a women and socialized more with men, I finally knew. He was an old fashioned gentleman, without being a male chauvinist. I can't tell you how many times he told me I could be anything I wanted to be, yet he better never catch me not acting like a lady, or I was in big trouble!
One of my favorite memories was when I was about ten, and he and my uncle put up this great big jungle gym for me in the back yard. I asked him if I could bring some friends over to play with me, and he said yes, and then the next day he caught me playing with about twelve boys! Needles to say, I was in BIG trouble. He knew I was far too young to be doing anything wrong, (hell, I didn't have my first kiss until I was sixteen!) but he tried to explain that my playing with twelve boys, was just not lady-like.
It wasn't always easy being his little girl, because I was as much a smart ass and stubborn as he was, but no girl could have had a better father. He taught me that men aren't the complicated creatures we women think they are. If you find a good man, all you need to do is just let them be a man, stroke that ego, show them you love them, stroke that ego, don't try to make them think like you do, oh and did I mention to stroke that ego? Women are the ones who are the trouble makers, I still end up putting my foot in my mouth with women, and I'm a woman!
Is it possible to be a ladies man and still be faithful? Well grandpa proved it was. I remember the stories about him knowing his share of women, and he had a ball in Paris during WWI. But then in 1923 he married this little spitfire of a woman named Mary, and he stayed with her for fifty-nine years! Yet he attracted women like bees to honey. He told me one day that life is too short, and it doesn't matter how long your married, if your not happy leave, and try to find happiness with someone else. But never try to have your cake and eat it to, or you'll be sorry. He said he felt sorry for men and women who stay in a loveless marriage for the kids, or money, or even worse, because of a vow they took in church. He thought of God as a father, and what father would want his child to be unhappy. You know for a man born in the 1800's he was one hip dude! No angel by any means, but a straight, no bullshit type of man that lived his life by his own set of morals.
There was just one thing wrong with my relationship with my grandpa, and that was that God only let me have him for sixteen years. The man was my father, teacher, protector, and best friend. In other words, he was the center of my universe. I remember my grandma telling him that we were too close, and that he was probably not going to live to see me grow up, (he was 70 when I was born) but he told her it was too late to change things now. But grandma was right, and on October 16, 1982 God called him home. Now twenty-seven years later not a day goes by that I don't think of him, and what he must think of me, and how I turned out.
Men like grandpa are very, very rare. In fact in my forty-plus years I've only known three. Two thank God are in my life now, the other was my childhood sweetheart George. We reconnected about three years ago, and he said that the one thing that he remembered about grandpa, was that he loved that grandpa could wear a pink shirt, except flowers from a woman, and still hold his manly head up high. "Your grandpa would have loved that t-shirt that reads REAL MEN WEAR PINK!" It's true, grandpa wasn't afraid of his feminine side. He was a man's man, and he didn't need to be a bully, or have a trophy wife, or even have a bunch of money to hold his head up with other men.
Grandpa, like the song from Bread says, "no one could ever know, the part of me that can't let go" everything I am, and believe in, you taught me. But you never taught me how to live my life without you! I hope mom is right, and that you are proud of the woman I've become. But I don't care how many years go by, or how many men come in and out of my life, I miss being in your arms and hearing you tell me that everything will be alright, and that you're there for me. I miss not having you here to protect me, defend my honor, and to make me laugh. Through the years I've learned to do all those things for myself, yet I've never learned how to live without that huge strong loving hand of yours stroking my shoulder telling me that I was loved, and that no one better mess with your little girl. Well your little girl misses you, and again, as the song says, "I would give everything I own just to have you back again!"
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