Grandpa Cows

Most of my favorite memories of my Grandpa Cows were just normal days growing up in Howell. For instance, the day in these pictures. This day that was the opening of the Arbor Drugs. It wasn't a special day. It was just a regular day. A day that for some reason ended up with me and Grandpa at a drug store getting our pictures taken with a clown. And those pictures would end up sitting in frames in my grandma's living room for years. I love that.

You never knew what was going to happen when you spent time with grandpa. You might end up eating all the leftover popcorn at the theater out of a garbage bag while watching SPEED when you were a little too young. Or you might end up in the garden or down at the donut shop or taking a ride just to take a ride. So many days he'd ride his bike down our driveway just to say hi or pull his truck up next to the house to work on some project. It was something I took for granted, that grandpa would always be just around the corner. We'd pass him in town, spotting his red truck from down the block, or run into him at the hardware. He was always there. 

Today would have been my Grandpa Boutell's 80th birthday. A celebration I'm sure would have been marked with cards, phone calls, and gifts of some of his favorites: jerky, flavored popcorn, candy, smoked salmon. Years ago a birthday would've been marked with a soft-sided package of pipe tobacco wrapped and topped with a bow (the gift Angela and I always signed our names to in the early years). There would have been grandma's cake and definitely ice cream (I think that's where I get my habit from -- he had a bowl almost every night). There would have been loud conversation all around that grandpa would interject in once in a while but mostly? He'd just sit back and take it all in. He had four sons, countless grandchildren and yet never seemed to be flapped by anything. Never seemed bothered or annoyed (well, sometimes I saw it creep on his face when grandma would get on him - and I can still hear his "Okay!", it was the only word I heard him use when he got angry but it was the tone that said it all) or angry. In all my years I don't think he ever said a cross word to me.

I am heartbroken that grandpa isn't here to celebrate his birthday this year, just as I'm heartbroken grandma is gone too. I wish I could call them up on the phone this morning and talk to grandpa for about 2 minutes, hear him say, "Okay babe, here's grandma" and smile as he passed me off to grandma who would then talk my arm off. Instead, I sit here, looking at the little silver genie bottle clock he gave me when I graduated college. It was just a gift from him, not from him and grandma. It was something he got at a church rummage sale. The clock no longer works though I've tried to put a new battery in it for years. But it still sits on my desk, just where grandpa wanted it. When he handed it to me he didn't have to explain, I knew how proud he was of me and what I would go on to do behind a desk. I have no idea if he ever read anything I ever wrote and it doesn't matter at all. I can assure you grandma told him all about it over and over again. But it's those gestures that stay with me. The clock, the money tucked into my pocket for a dresser for my first apartment, the picnic basket he found and cleaned up for Ang and me that still sits in my closet.

I sit here this morning, tears drowning out the sound of my fingers on the keyboard, and even though I am incredibly sad, more than that I am oh so blessed. To have had this man in my life for 35 years. To have had such a role model, such an incredible heart to look up to. To see someone who worked for and provided for his family, who loved me as his own even though I wasn't, who never once broke my heart. Happy Birthday, Grandpa Cows. I miss you. I love you.