Poppy

Is there a person in your life that has never let you down?

I have one of those peeople in my life, so I'm going to take a quick second to recognize him.

My grandpa was born on November 10th, 1939. He was a middle child with several sisters and brothers. They lived, among many places, in a small shack near the river. As a teen, he loved building and driving fast cars, and dating girls.

He married my grandma on 03/14/59, the day before her seventeenth birthday. They had three children in three years, all girls. He worked countless odd jobs to support them, and loved to do hands on arts and other crafts.

In the mid sixties, my grandmother was diagnosed with Hodkin's Lymphoma and he picked his family up and moved them to Colorado. The hospital there was better for cancer patients; and he really wanted to prove that he could take care of his family on his own.

While living in Colorado, and doing other countless jobs like grave digging, he was dianosed with Multiple Sclerosis. He continued working, and eventually came back to Oklahoma when my grandmother was in remission.

They moved back to her family farm, where he still lives today.

In the late 1980's my grandma began having increasing difficulty with her vision, and by the late 1990's was completely blind. He took care of her every need and put up with her many demands. He put up with his own illness and issues, never stopping to be the victim, and did every trivial task from making her cereal to driving her around. Once she became more acclimated to her vision loss, she enrolled in the tech school nearby to become a medical transcriptionist. He took her daily to class, and picked me up from school on the way home.

On my sixteenth birthday, they sent me an orange/pink rose. I kept it for years before it distengrated from moving.

When my grandma became sick again he dealt with her constant pain, lack of motivation to do anything, and inability to eat much more than cereal. He didn't complain much, just did what he'd promised to do the day they married.

Let me just say, for the record, times weren't always great. They bickered a LOT. But they still loved each other and were a great example of how powerful the vows we take when married truly are.

My grandma passed away in 2006, and as hard as that was I can't imagine my life without him. I know that one day it will happen, but I pray often that his happy, relatively healthy life will continue for a long time to come.

That was his life, and his trials. His daily life of caring for his spouse, but where does anyone else play into that? Well, when he could no longer work and was placed on disability, he and my grandma were my primary care-givers while my mother worked.

I spent more time running through damp grass and playing in dirt than most girls every dream of. As I grew, I still spent as much time there as I could. He and I would watch TV, or I would just go and sit at the computer enjoying being in their house, with them. He was always there if I needed anything, and is continually so today.

I'm sure most girls feel this way about their dads, but as mine took a little longer to grow up than most, My Poppy was my fill in Dad.

Anyone who knows this man, knows just how special he is.

My inspiration for this post, other than his complete awesomeness, was my sister posting on our local newsman's facebook. His name is also Jed. She posted, "Happy Birthday Jed. My grandpa's birthday is also today." To which he responded, "Is he from Gracmeont? I just talked to him this morning, he has called to wish me a happy birthday for the past two years."

And that's just the kind of person he is.