Two weeks ago I was on my lunch break and had headed home for the hour, just like so many other days. I was unloading my dishwasher when I heard my mom come through my front door. This wasn’t unusual, to have her stop in while out and about because she saw my car parked outside. I asked what she was up to, and she didn’t answer me. She quickly came through my den and got right in front of me and said “Honey, I have some bad news. Bill Laney died.”
My grandfather.
It was one of those moments when I felt like I all of a sudden didn’t have knees. I completely crumpled and only because I was able to grab onto the door frame did I not crash to the ground in my dining room. I was sobbing and shaking and couldn’t catch my breath all at one time. The room went black for a second and I hoped that I would wake up and realize it was a bad dream. But this was really happening.
Bill suffered what was either a massive heart attack or a blood clot from knee surgery that he had just a few months ago. No one saw a thing coming. Whatever it was, it is believed that it took him instantly. There is such blessing in that, even though it leaves the people still here shocked and breathless. My other 3 grandparents all suffered at the end and there wasn’t anything fair about that to them, even if it did ultimately prepare us a little more in saying goodbye.
My grandmother, Granny, married Bill in 1971, well before my time. They were truly the loves of each others lives. He became an instant father to my dad and my uncle, and he became one heck of a proud grandfather in 1981 when I came along and then again in 1984 when Elizabeth was born. I am not tooting my horn or Elizabeth’s when I say that his world revolved around us. It’s just the truth. He loved my dad and Allen just like the sons that they were, but he had never “had kids” from the minute they were born and gotten to watch them grow up from the start. So we were his kids, and he was determined to play a huge part in our lives.
I practically lived at Bill (I think at one point he was “Grandpa Bill” but it eventually was just Bill) and Granny’s starting when I was very very young. I could go see my mom’s parents and be one of 6 grandkids (& 7 once Elizabeth was born) running around or go to Granny and Bill’s and be the star of the show. Who wouldn’t have gone to their house? When Elizabeth was born I kept it right up and spent nearly every weekend with them. She came along occasionally as she got a little older, but sometimes I was still able to keep it as my own little getaway.
Granny passed away in February of 1987 after a hard fought battle with ovarian cancer. She was only 51. I was still quite young, but fortunately had spent so much time with her that I remember her very well. Time spent with Bill didn’t stop – not even close, he needed us now more than ever. Someone at his service last weekend told me that I was his therapy after Granny died, the reason he kept getting out of bed every day. I’m not sure I have ever received such a compliment.
A few years later Bill remarried, and for reasons that I don’t think anyone will ever understand, his new wife slowly pulled him out of all of our lives. We weren’t ‘blood relatives’ of his, and she didn’t see the need for us to still be a part of his life, or him a part of ours. I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it now. He had been my grandfather from the day I was born and at 12 years old or so, he was being taken away. After that Christmases were missing a trip to his house, birthday phone calls were quick and in secret, and mail from us had to be sent to the homes of his siblings in Lenoir to then be quietly delivered to him by them. I’ll never know or grasp the details of why it had to be this way, but that’s just how it was. And it was and is heartbreaking.
But he never missed the big things. He snuck to Winston for my high school graduation as well as Elizabeth’s. His tried and true Carolina blue Tarheel self might have been the proudest person in the room when each of us graduated from N.C. State. He was even able to make it to Elizabeth & Nick’s wedding this past January. For such memories we are forever grateful.
In the short weeks since Bill passed away, it has suddenly hit me from every angle what I “got” from Bill, and that is my love of children. And the impact of making them feel like the most important people on the planet.
The laundry can wait. The bills can wait. Sit on the floor and play a game with your little boy. Drop everything and go sit in the sandbox for a while with your daughter. Take your grandson on a tractor ride. Head to the mall to throw pennies in the fountain with your niece. Not one of these kids will remember if the beds were made or the car was clean, but they will ALL remember feeling like your world revolved around them.
And they will undoubtedly remember it when they are older and look back. It’s something from Bill that I will always have, and I know Elizabeth will too – the idea that someone thought that we hung the moon as we were growing up. I can remember wanting to go to Carowinds when I was little because there was a Smurf “show” in town – with the little mushroom houses and everything – and I just had to see it. So Bill took me. I can remember occasionally watching him stir up a bourbon & ginger (his drink of choice) and telling him I wanted a ‘drink from two bottles’ too, so he quickly mixed me up a orange juice & Sprite. I still drink them. I can remember watching Shirley Temple’s “Little Princess” with him what had to have been at least 100 times and him sitting all the way through it every time simply because I loved it so much. I can remember being in college and still getting those slightly oversized greeting cards in the mail that said things like “For My Granddaughter” or “Happy Birthday to a Special Girl” on the front in any array of sparkly, glittery colors. And I still have them all. And they were usually signed in green or red ink, which was just always so “Bill”.
I can remember it all. I always will.
Bill, I will miss you terribly. But I will never ever forget you or all that you mean to me. I love you.
