My Grandfather’s Passing

   The Rachel thing was discouraging, but I had accepted it begrudgingly. But I tried to look on the bright side… I loved being single. 

  Unfortunately, around this time my grandfather on my mother’s side passed away. He had been in and out of the hospital over the last year or so. It was rather sad because up to that point he was very active playing tennis and such. It all started when he had taken a fall after being taken to see the U.S. Open by my Uncle. The doctor who performed the surgery was terrible. After the surgery, my grandfather was in a lot of pain and kept insisting something was wrong. The doctor told him nothing was wrong.

  He was pretty much bedridden for weeks. It was so bad, that I flew back to New York to say my goodbyes. He looked frail just lying in bed. He made some small talk and then told me “You can go now.” He didn’t want me seeing him that way. He was from the WWII generation and pride was a big thing.   

  Finally he went back to a different hospital a new doctor pretty much said the previous doctor was a disaster, there was internal bleeding and we should sue. We didn’t. We just wanted him to get better. This new doctor was great, and my grandfather was up and around in no time.

   Unfortunately, the time he spent bedridden allowed a blood clot to form. While going upstairs he got winded, which was unusual, so he went and got checked out. They found that he had a blood clot and sent him to a VA hospital, which was terrible. They dropped a monitor on him the first day. They didn’t attend to him or his needs at all. He took things in stride, but as things got worse he pretty much said to my aunt that he wasn’t going to make it out of this place. While performing the surgery, he had a stroke. It was a mild one, but his vision became blurry. He would have been fine if he was stuck there as long as he could read his books, but with the vision impaired, he gave up.

  My parents were on a cruise when he passed away so my uncle made the call to me. I flew out to New York the next day. At the wake I met a lot of people who knew my grandfather and I found out about this whole other life I didn’t know about. He was the unofficial “Mayor” of a Country Club/Park he played Golf and Tennis at and loved by everyone. Others who served with him in WWII told stories as well. It was all pretty overwhelming.

  The night of the wake, my brother Kevin and I met up with Barbara, a long-time family friend at a nearby bar. It was then that I was informed that she and her husband were getting a divorce. Shortly after that, I met the new guy she started seeing. His name was Roger and he was a minor league baseball pitcher. He was a very nice guy and I told him if he makes it big, I’ll draft him for my Fantasy Baseball team, but he had to promise to tell me if he was hurting even if he wasn’t going to tell his manager.