“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
Today I spoke to my father on the phone and he said, “I am trying to keep myself alive long enough to come to the United States one more time in the spring.” I couldn’t find any words to say in reply. I later told my eldest son about this remark spoken so casually, and his face looked pained. “I wish he wouldn’t say things like that,” he said.
I nodded, “I feel the same way, but I think he is trying to prepare us for the inevitable. But we have hardly known him and now he is speaking of death. It hurts a lot.”
Last October, my father came from Spain and spent three days with each of his children. After he had visited me in the South and my sister in California, she called me on the phone and said, “I almost fell over when he said he was staying for three days. That is the longest visit I’ve had with him.” It is sad but true. It was the longest in our lives.
Then winter blew in and Poppy began to ask me to come and see him in Spain, and he gave my eldest son and me a gift we will never forget. We spent three weeks with him there in Paradise in the month of May.
Since then, I am trying not to fall apart from the longings inside, and Anger keeps whispering into my ear, saying “How could he hurt you like this after you have suffered so much already?”
But love covers a multitude of sins. I told my son, “Our battle now is to love purely and not feel bitter about the past or how late it is for him to come into our lives. Your grandfather is reaching out to us now, and we might have never known him at all. Many people never know their fathers or grandfathers. Think about that.” My son nodded.
So now we want to admonish Poppy that we expect him to live to be at least one hundred, and to come and stay for a longer time with us. We have really enjoyed the tapas but now we are hungry for the plato principal.
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