There Will Never Be Another You

Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of my grandfather passing away. To celebrate his memory, my relatives on my mom's side got together this morning at his grave in Annapolis. My uncle, who had spoken at his funeral, also led the small memorial today and also allowed everyone in the family to share whatever stories they wanted.

I was pretty amazed at how quickly the last ten years have gone by without him. This morning made me think back to the day when I first got the news of his passing. My parents were in Paris that week on vacation, and one of my sisters was on spring break in New Orleans. I was studying for a midterm exam for that afternoon when my aunt called to talk to my mom. I told her she was out of the country and hard to reach, so my aunt told me my grandfather had a heart attack and was gone within seconds. Needless to say, the news took the entire family by surprise, and the situation was compounded by most of my family on vacation.

I tried to concentrate on studying for my exam, and somehow brought myself to take the test that day. I came home to find my sister home from school and told her the news right away. She was just as upset over it as I was, and my aunt called back to check up on us. I couldn't bring myself to call my mom in Paris and ruin her vacation by telling her about Gramps, so my aunt volunteered to call her herself. Coincidentally, my other sister just happened to call that same night to check up on us as well, and I had to break the news to her, despite wondering if it was the right thing to do.

There were other significant details that had to be worked out in order to arrange for his funeral, and fortunately they were completed by the time everyone had come home from their respective vacations. I recall at his viewing my relatives all sat around and talked about the last few years of his life. He had quadruple bypass open heart surgery a couple years beforehand, and nearly died from infections from his surgery. He eventually recovered, but I'm sure his heart attack was related in some fashion to the surgeries he had. Regardless, we all took a moment to realize the gift he was given in the last couple years of his life.

I also thought a lot about some of the best memories I had of my grandfather when I was young. Probably my favorite memory was of many weekends when my parents would drop me off at his house when I was a kid, and we'd rent movies and walk through a park together. We'd read books, design wooden toy trucks and cars, and talk to the squirrels in the park (he told me many times I was a natural at talking to the squirrels). I'm also certain my parents had no issues at all of giving me over to him for a couple days at a time so I'd be out of their hair for a weekend.

Visiting my grandfather's grave was a task on my list, so I can now cross that off. In fact, I actually got to see my grandfather's tombstone for the first time this morning since his funeral, and the inscription on his tombstone was very fitting for him:

Robert Wilton Stevens: There will never be another you.