My grandfather, who I use to call Pa Pa, was actually my step grandfather. I never really knew my real grandfather but Pa Pa was my real grandfather as far as I was concerned. My dad always thought of him as his father. He and my grandmother got married on August 2nd two days before my Big Go Go’s birthday. He was a very kind and gentle man. He worked at the sanitation department in Valparaiso for several years. He would work nights and my grandmother worked days. After my grandmother passed away, my grandfather was so lost without her. We would have him come out for dinner and try to spend a lot of time with him. We would go to the house to see if he had enough to eat, we would look in the freezer and it would be full of chicken tv dinners. That was his favorite meal.

My grandfather always wanted to give me money but my parents didn’t like him to do that because they thought he was spoiling me. So he decided that he would pay me for grades I got on my report card. The funny thing was, I always got the same amount of money no matter what the grades were - $20. My grandfather is also the one person that taught me how to draw a box. At the time I thought that was such a neat thing to learn and I was drawing boxes on everything.

We use to go down sometimes and my parents would still play pinochle with him but this time I was able to play with them. I know that they were very patient with me because I was not the best player in the world.

Pa Pa started losing the will to live about a year after my grandmother died. He just didn’t really care about a lot of things anymore. For Christmas in 1970 he told my mom that he wanted to do something special for us so he had her go with and he bought us a console tv for the family and then something larger for each one of us. This was not like him really because my grandmother use to do all the shopping but he was so adamant this time that he give us something “special” that year. About a week before Christmas he was put in the hospital with chest pains. He was in intensive care and at the time I was too young to go up but they let me anyway. That was a whole different experience that I will never forget. We really thought that he would get better and be able to come home. At 4:30 am Christmas morning the hospital called to tell us that Pa Pa had died. I can remember the phone ringing and we all just sat and cried and looked at each other. We didn’t really want to open gifts that day because we were all too sad, and then there in the living room sat the new tv from him along with the other presents. He must have known that he would not make it for Christmas that year. My dad had to call family and tell them that he had passed and I can remember him apologizing to everyone that he was calling on Christmas to tell them. It was a day that I will never forget.

I was fortunate that I had Pa Pa in my life, because he was such a loving and caring person. He was the only grandfather that I really knew and had and one that I loved very much. God Bless you Pa Pa – I love you.

Nancy Rodgers