grandpa

it's who my Grandmother and my mother were that has me wishing I had known my Grandfather. I've been sorting through a lot of photos of him lately since mom died. He was over 6 foot tall and had gentle eyes, a good looking guy and my mom would always tear up when talking about daddy. He and my gran lived through some really tough times back then and yet they remained good solid and decent human beings that raised a boy and 4 girls who all managed to make their parents proud. This was back when 25 cents would buy a piece of steak that would feed all of them.

Today was a solemn day, a day when I couldn't manage to feel like getting up to go do anything really. When those days happen the memories and then the sadness is right there under the surface. It was like that today. I kept away from tv and the cable news propaganda and just kind of sat around thinking about all the things I wasn't getting done and trying to dream up some sort of plan for my new life. I didn't get very far with that and then the whole day went by like so many do even with my newfound understanding of just how short life is. I feel like such the fool now for wasting even a minute.

Over the years I've often felt like I was this guy who was born about 100 years past his time. When I go through these old photos and I try an imagine what it would have been like to have grown up and been influenced by all these good sturdy people my mom grew up with. I'll never know what it would have been like but I do wonder about it a lot now. I made some bad mistakes in my younger days that would have crushed the hearts of those people had they been here to see it and all along it was breaking my mom's heart with worry some 45 years ago. That was what changed my life from a dumbass young risk-taker to wanting to be the son my mom deserved to have had. Mom is the one who saved my life back then just by being someone I couldn't bear to shame anymore. I turned my life around because of her and wanted to make her proud.

Mom in my grans arms, 2 of my aunts, and grandpa

Our Matthews family area at Laurel Land Cemetery is where all these giants of my family are laid to rest and my mom is buried between her beloved brother Dub and a plot reserved for me so we can all be together. Maybe it sounds morbid but I can't wait to see them all again and to meet Dub and my grandpa for the first time. I'm not quite ready just yet cause I've got some promises to keep that I made to my mom to sort out everyone's things and I feel worthless that I wasted this entire day doing nothing. Tomorrow I'll pick back up and get busy and God willing he'll give me another day to replace this one to get it all done. I so look forward to the day I can say Mom I did it, t's all done and then my ticket already pre-paid and in hand I'll be ready to go. I know Dub is gonna want to have a beer up there and maybe by then I'll have developed a taste for it.