A LOVE STORY

 When my grandmother died, my grandfather was devastated.  She had been sick, but still the loss was overwhelming as she was his world and his support in it, despite her lack of cooking skills and deep depression.  However, after my grandmother left, a rich attractive widow found my grandfather through the obituary column in the newspaper.  They met, dated, and he began to fall in love.

It was quite a shock when he began to be mistreated and he realized he was just the flavor of the week and this woman was cherry picking the obituary column for choice man meat.  Once again my grandfather was  upset and depressed and began to sulk in his dark apartment alone.  But sometimes love finds a way.

It just so happens the apartment above my grandfather's became vacant and a family moved in with their grandmother.  They were from Latvia.  The grandmother was fluent in many languages, but not English.  I noticed over time my grandfather was absent because he was courting the grandmother upstairs.

Soon he began speaking a language I did not recognize and I did not see in him the man that was my grandfather anymore as he was spending so much time with this woman he became more a part of their family and less a part of ours.  I resented that and the time I missed with him because he was making sweet love with this new woman in their palatial cramped apartment upstairs.

My fondest memory of them was my grandfather rowing a boat in a local lake as his love interest sat inside, so in love.

This woman was someone he could love and love him back.  Someone that saved him from the abject loneliness of what could have been his last years.  She was his savior and lover.  She brought him a new lease on life.

When my grandfather passed away, his former love came to me in between tears at the funeral and said, "Don't forget me."  I kissed her on the cheek and felt so ashamed of my selfishness, bitterness, and ignorance at my grandfather finding a new love.  I realized then how much she meant to him and how much he meant to her.

ESSIE I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU.

I know you are up in heaven ESSIE and my grandmother is keeping you far away from my grandfather.