October 1st, 2006: Personal Day for Reflection

• At staff request, I’m taking a personal day off. I was urged, considering that I will not be flying back the states for Grampy’s funeral, to take some time for myself. I’m in a fairly good state at this point. Though sad that Grampy is no longer around and that I won’t be able to share my stories of my trip with him when I return, I’m glad that he’s back with Nan. He missed her dearly.

I have been thinking a lot about my favorite times and memories of him. These images keep popping into my head:

• VW Beetles and Rabbits
• Grampy teaching me about the value of character using the example of a beat-up Beetle.
• Blowing bubbles and spinning pinwheels
• Gramp’s handmade helicopters (I just recently saw them again here in Japan!)
• Nan and Gramps, world travelers and gamblers J
• Christmas at their (Nan and Gramp’s) old house under the metal tree
• Racing Matchbox cars on the kitchen floor
• Taking sea creatures home from the Boulevard to show Nan
• Grampy quitting smoking so we could spend more time together (he refused to smoke in the house with me there)
• Grampy rebuilding old bicycles and giving them to the neighborhood kids
• Handmade wooden robots, space ships, cells, and sailboats (that we sailed at Good Harbour Beach)
• Swimming at Good Harbour Beach and Gramp laughing about how his grandson should be a fish
• Walking along the Boulevard and meeting the man who monitors the bridge
• Skipping rocks
• Dunkin Doughnuts at the Liberty Tree Mall
• Grampy knowing EVERYONE at the Liberty Tree Mall
• Building model cars and planes
• Grampy’s purple heart
• Blue eyes behind tinted glasses
• Driving me to hundreds of doctor, dentist, and orthodontic appointments
• Laughing at Teenee, my old cat
• Enjoying milk, crackers, and peanutbutter prepared by Nan
• Grampy sunning himself in a chair on the lawn
• Comparing watch-tans (darn Finn, he always won!)
• Silly faces at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner
• Laughing about Nan’s eccentricities
• Sketching machines on graph paper
• Disney World
• Swimming at Aunty Eva and Uncle Vayne’s pool
• Barbecue and carrot cake for Grampy’s birthday/Father’s day
• Rides to school every Thursday when Nan and Gramp came over to do laundry
• Grampy teaching me to drive and saying “Ya gotta stick your neck out there or you’ll never get anywhere”
• (When another car would honk at him) “So what else did you get for Christmas?!”
• (When he found the perfect parking spot) “If I had known you were coming, I would have baked a cake”
• Countless games at the video arcade, purchased with money that Gramp had found on the ground while on his walks.
• Mint bubble gum
• Dinners at the Village
• Understanding every sound and motion when Gramp lost his speech (save Finnish swears), after his stroke.
• (My third year at college, when both he and Nan were in the hospital) Grampy telling me as we were finishing our phone call, “Tell Nanny that I love her”

So many wonderful memories that I will cherish forever. Thank you Grampy Toi. I’ll miss you.