When I Realized My Grandfather Really Wasn’t Coming Back

Something happened today that really jarred my memory and brought me to write this post. I saw the following picture on Facebook and it got me thinking about my grandfather.

It took me right back to the moments where I can remember thinking about him and instantly started crying. Even now writing this, I can feel the water filling up in my eyes. I know many of you will say that you have/had an awesome grandfather to, but I’d like to take a minute to tell you about mine, and how special he truly was.

I guess it starts when my mother became pregnant with me. My parents were not married. I guess my grandfather liked my dad, but he was very upset about the whole situation and didn’t talk to my mother for days. However, being the man that he was, he still bought her a crib and everything she would need for me, even though he wasn’t talking to her. He was always that way, taking care of things even when he was upset.

Of course, as soon as I was born, he was completely smitten. My mother is a child of two, but lived very much a single child’s life. She never met her brother as he died on a surgery table a few months after he was born. That meant, I was the first and only grandchild.

My parents didn’t stay together very long. They did get married after I was born, but separated when I was about 4, officially divorcing when I was around 5. Where do you think we went back to? My grandparents. In fact, their home was very much “home base” my entire life.

My grandfather always spoiled me (and later my other siblings). I have pictures where my toys barely fit in the picture with me. My father told me that I would get tired of opening gifts because there were simply so many. I had this 6″+ man wrapped around my tiny finger. There’s no denying he loved me.

My grandfather was a used car salesman. In fact, it was my mother’s company that he worked for her since she dropped out of college to be home with me. The company was even named after my sister and I. But eventually he took over the company and changed its name since he did become the only one running the business.

I used to love visiting him at his office. My grandmother and I would get lunches for him, he would let me sit in his office chair, I would be called his “Number 1 Dudette”, and I loved the fact that everywhere we went, people always knew and respected my grandfather, and thus treated me as if I was a special person. I had never met anyone who didn’t know or like my grandfather.

If you could imagine the biggest realistic playground in the world, that would be my grandfather’s car lot. He gave me access to all the keys and vehicles in his lot. I can still remember the amount of fun we had pretending to drive the cars, and especially in exploring the only RV I remember him having. Only once did he ask me to backup a truck into a corner spot. My mother sat in the passenger seat with me, and I remember learning really quick to use my mirrors. I was so scared I would mess up his vehicles in this tight spot. But I did it! I still can’t believe he trusted me…

If I could compare him to anything, it would very much be the godfather. I’m not joking when I say that everyone seemed to know who he was. He was an amazing man when he was happy, but he was always a man you feared when he was unhappy. I don’t remember him every getting mad at me, but it was a general rule that when he came home, the remote control to the television had to be in the right spot for him to lay on the couch and watch what he wanted. He became upset if the remote went missing. There were just certain things you knew not to do.

Sometimes, my grandmother and him would fight. I’m sure there’s not a couple in the world who has not at least had one argument. Sometimes, or maybe more than sometimes, this meant he would stay at his office for the night. It was a conveniently built, small building that contained 3 rooms and a tiny hallway. One room was “the office”. The second room was of course a washroom. And the third room was his bedroom. It contained only a tv, a bed, and a mini fridge. It pretty much had everything he needed if he needed a night away. So it was a fairly normal occurrence for him not to come home sometimes.

The best thing about my grandfather was that he was always there for us. There was a time when we didn’t have the most money, and work was slow. My grandfather always provided what we needed, and then some. Most of you know that I have moved like 20 times with my family, not including on my own. The one person who was always there, regardless of where we were, was my grandfather. He never missed an opportunity to come and stay with us. (Of course I should say my grandmother always came with him as well, but I will dedicate a post to her another day.) He was honestly one of the biggest constants in my life.

When my family made the official decision to move from the east coast to the west coast, my grandparents offered to bring my sister and I out at the end of summer so that we could spend the extra time with our father. It was a fair bit of a long drive, but even then my grandfather trusted me with reading the map (before GPS systems). I almost think his belief in me helped me grow to the independent woman I am today. I have a lot to credit him for.

They stayed with us at our new place for a few days. Early in the morning, him and I would get up and drive to a hotel or another homey restaurant to eat. He was not a chain-restaurant type of person. Even back in the town he worked, he had one particular restaurant he preferred to eat at, and everybody knew his specials and what he enjoyed eating. He always preferred the homestyle cooking. In fact, he met my grandmother while she was waitressing at such a type of restaurant. My family and I have visited that restaurant a few times and imagined what it must have been like. They still have the juke boxes and the old stools. Sometimes it’s nice to preserve history rather than to embrace change.

We then took a trip to the “big city” so my grandparents could see it before they left. We had a lot of fun. At one point, we lost my grandfather in the big mall. I’ll never forget him driving around on those motorized scooters for people who can’t walk well. He had even gotten an orange smoothie and I guess spilled it all over the machine. If you knew my grandfather like I did, you would picture him using colourful language for the time he was mad, then acting like nothing ever happened.

I don’t remember how we ever found him, but I can tell you it was one of the hardest good-byes of my life.This wasn’t just moving a few hours away, this was a four day drive across the country. Of course they would come visit again, but the visits would never be as frequent as before. What I didn’t know was that my tears would get worse before they ever got better.

Literally two or three days after we returned to our new home, I got a call from my grandmother. It sounded like her for sure, but something was a little different. She asked to speak to my mom pretty much right away, so I gave my mom the phone and sat on the landing of the stairs. My mother took the phone into her room which was at the top of the stairs. The next words I heard told me pretty much everything I didn’t want to hear. She said, as she began crying, “Oh Mom!”.

My grandparents had been involved in a car accident on their journey home. An impatient driver went in their lane to pass a semi-truck and didn’t see my grandparents van coming at them. My grandmother was in the hospital, a little bruised but otherwise ok (she would later need nose surgery to correct the alignment). My grandparents’ friend who was helping them drive home had so many broken bones, including ribs and shoulder, and would also need counselling for what happened (he was driving at the time – completely not his fault). But my grandfather didn’t make it.The speed they were traveling on the highway, and the impact of a completely head-on hit left the vehicle in shambles and took my grandfather with it.

Immediately, we packed and drove back to the city. I thankfully had a great aunt and uncle who lived just outside the limits and welcomingly invited us in until we could all make arrangements to fly home. My mother was able to fly right away to be with my grandmother, but there were 4 more of us to fly, and we had to wait for a cheaper ticket to afford it.

It was so strange when I got home. Being in my grandparents house seemed so normal. I mean, I was only at my “new home” for less than a week. I had no attachments to it and didn’t even have to act like it was supposed to be my new home. I had come home and it felt like life should be normal again.

I know I cried a few times, but I remember just having the attitude and thoughts of “My grandfather is just at his office, staying the night like he usually does. Sometime he’ll come home.”

I still remember it as clear as yesterday: My mother and I were sitting in the living room, on separate couches, not talking much as we didn’t for a while, and her saying the exact same thing that I felt – that Grampy was just at his office and sometime he would come home. And it hit us right then that we had to realize it was wasn’t true, that Grampy really wasn’t coming back. I broke down (just like I am again now) because he was always there, for everything! How could he not come back this time! How could the one stable thing in my life not come back! It was so hard to accept.

Sitting in his house, seeing all of his old stuff, going to his office, it was all so hard to do when you realize the person who has always been there for you, the person who has loved you your whole life was suddenly gone. My nickname would never be used again, except when telling stories of him. My promise from him of giving me my first car would never come true. My life was drastically left with an empty hole that I’m not sure was ever filled again. Nobody could take his place, and I could never have been prepared for that instant change in time.

Life is not fair, and it never will be. The devil is waiting for any opportunity to attack and make a mess of things. He knows which strings to pull and he knows how to make things hurt you more than anyone else. He knows he can damage us and take away everything that means the world to us, which is why it’s so important to turn to God when you’re hurting, to let Him hold you and tell you that everything is going to be ok, because one day, it will. One day, when Jesus returns and we are taken to Heaven with Him, there will not be anymore pain, there will not be anymore death, there will not be anymore tears. I don’t know what my grandfather’s relationship with Christ was like. I know he sort of had a falling out at one point, but he insisted my mom make sure she took us to church. So I only hope and pray that he had a good relationship with God, because it would be so nice to run into those loving arms I miss so dearly, the loving arms that were missing during both of my graduations and my wedding, the loving arms that were taken away from me way too soon.

I miss this man more than anything, and truly just thinking of how much I miss him brings me to tears almost instantly. Hold your loved ones close and make sure you let them know how important they are to you. You never know which instant will take them away.

Day 1 in Review

Hello everyone!

As promised, I will tell you what my days are like, and what I may struggle with.

I have gotten quite a few ideas from different vegans, however, today I decided to go with Freelee’s sample meal plan in a way that I could do it.

For breakfast, I’m having pulpy orange juice. That way I’m still getting in some of the fibre, and filling up on some yummy oranges. She suggests drinking 2L just for breakfast! I would have loved this as a kid, and still enjoy it today! I don’t think this is something I will do everyday, simply because I know it is important to get the full fibre in of a full fruit, but every once in awhile, it’s a nice, healthy “treat”!

For supplements with my breakfast (I’ll quit taking them as soon as I run out though…), I’m taking 2 probiotics (to make sure my digestion doesn’t do anything funny on the switch in diet), biotin (for hair and nail growth), and vitamin D (it just snowed again today!). I am planning on taking vitamin D still on days that I don’t get outside in the sun much, and also planning on taking B12 which apparently is difficult to get enough of on many different diets, not just vegan. Aside from those two, I will not continue the others once I am done with them, unless I need to. I also took two green chews (using to help me adjust until I’m eating a sufficient amount of greens each day), and some multivitamins (which I will also stop taking once they are done).

For a snack, I again took Freelee’s suggestion and drank some more pulpy orange juice. Like I said, it’s amazing! But I don’t think I would do this more than once or twice a week. It’s good to get a variety of fruits and veggies in too!

In total, I drank approximately 2.63L of pulpy orange juice. I did not even feel hungry at lunch! I’m in love.

Now, I was little worried that because I was drinking so much orange juice, and no water, that my urine would show up as dehydrated (darker yellow). After all, as a kid, you grow up thinking this is the case, usually because it’s not pure orange juice you were drinking. But nope! It was really clear. I was very hydrated! That’s the power of real things (no additives).

I got really busy at work (teaching, of course), and did not get a chance to eat anything else throughout the afternoon. I thought I had a deadline for certain files to be in my students’ records. Although I was done getting them to do their part, I wanted to grade them quickly before I sent them to their files. So I was grading like a mad-woman! When I was done with one stack, and about to tackle the next (after school), I took the one stack to our special needs coordinator. She was so excited I was done with them and was the first one. I looked at her and asked her why I was the first one when the deadline was tomorrow. She then proceeded to tell me the deadline was a week from tomorrow. I had the date completely wrong! Ugh… Oh well, I’d rather have things done earlier than later. I didn’t mark the second stack though. I went home.

I was so hungry when I came home, and so excited at the same time. I had just subscribed to a service called The Organic Box. They deliver fresh, organic produce to you once a week. You’re able to customize that you want, and it’s just amazing. So I got my first box today, and was so excited as I brought it in the house and was taking everything out. In fact, it inspired my supper.

For supper, I had a big salad with 50/50 mixed greens from Organic Girl, berries from my Organic Box (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries), rainbow carrots from my Organic Box, field cucumber from my Organic Box, some sunflower seeds and soya nuts that I had, and topped with a mixture I made of avocado, salsa, lemon and a touch of vegan cream cheese. Oh it was so delicious and fresh tasting. Absolutely loved it!

Unplanned, but when we got to the gym, they have a Booster Juice and my husband wanted one of their smoothies. They have these vegetarian wraps that are super tasty, so I got one of those. I’m not sure this was vegan… That was my mistake. I will have to check another time.

My workout went well. I did a 10 minute warm-up on the treadmill, did some push-ups, some kettebell and 10-lb plate squats (hold the plate straight out in front of you), planks, foam rolling, shoulder rolls, standing alternating toe touches, my chiropractor exercises, and a 20 minute brisk walk on the treadmill.

Usually when I do cardio, I take it as my chance to read. I’ve conquered quite a few books this way because I have so much going on the rest of the time. Right now, I’m reading a book called “Skinny B***h”. I don’t swear, ever, so I will not type it out, sorry. But it is a super good book so far (minus some swearing/harsh language), but the information is awesome. The two ladies that wrote it are actually vegan and they explain why they’ve made this choice and why people should make that choice throughout the first chapters of the book. Love it.

After we came home, I took some mini, organic sweet potatoes that I had and cooked them up. One had gone mouldy in the bag, but didn’t seem to effect the others. I was so deceived. I cooked up about four of them, took them out of the peel and mashed them together, had a couple good bites, then took a bite that was potently terrible. In fact I had to spit it back out, clean my mouth out, gargle and the works. Oh that was so terrible. I didn’t go on eating anything more last night. That had ruined my appetite.

Following this, I went to bed.

Week 11 Day 1: Double Time!

The good news? My husband woke up feeling much better! The bad news? I didn’t sleep well. I tried sleeping on the couch downstairs so that I wasn’t face-to-face with whatever my husband had. But between this one housefly that would not leave my ear alone, and the dogs whining, I ended up dragging myself upstairs around 3 a.m. and getting “ok” sleep from then on. Sometimes it would be so much easier if dogs could just talk in a language we could understand. Ugh.

So today, I spent quite a bit of time doing laundry and house cleaning again. However, since I had missed the gym so much already, it was my goal to get to the gym twice today. Somehow, I succeeded.

My husband was in no shape to go to the gym today, especially since he was still recovering from yesterday. So he simply dropped me off at the gym after we ate some Booster Juice together. There is a Booster Juice in my gym, so it was all done in one stop.

My first workout was a legs workout. And oh man, did I raise the weight on almost everything. I pushed hard! And I was loving it. I remember a time when I used to DREAD leg workouts with every ounce of my being, and more and more, I’m noticing how much I actually enjoy them! It’s funny how things change!

After my leg workout, my husband came and picked me up. We went to a Japanese restaurant that was recommended by his journeyman. I was so excited, did not order sushi but instead had a bento box with vegetable tempura, rice, steamed sprouts and teriyaki chicken. I couldn’t finish it. It was so SALTY! I’m not sure if this is typical of Japanese food or not, but seriously, I left with a salty headache, craving sugar or anything that would cut that salty feeling.

After we ate, I had my husband dropped me off at the gym again. I felt fairly good after we ate, so I figured I might as well go and get it done.

The second workout was much harder. It was a chest workout and I could tell my energy was draining much faster. I also did a second round of 25 minutes of steady state cardio afterwards (first time was after my leg workout) and by the end, I knew I needed food, fast. My husband unfortunately forgot to bring the food I asked him to bring when he picked me up, so we made a pitstop on the way home and I loaded up on a huge chicken wrap (protein and minimal fat), a doughnut ( quick carb-loading!), and a nice iced coffee to add back some energy. This actually backfired on me because I think the caffeine kept me awake. I went from barely being able to stay awake to not being able to fall asleep. Oops.

It was a good day, and although two workouts was a lot for one day, I feel accomplished and my mind is happy. That’s a good way to end the day.

Week 10 Day 2: You Are Capable Of More Than You Realize

Well, this morning was nothing short of a little rushed. My car has not been looked at yet, so my husband had to drop me off at work on his way. This was not a big problem, except he underestimated how much I have to get done in the morning. It was truly my fault we weren’t out the door sooner because I didn’t sleep last night. Honestly, this teaching thing has a way of consuming you. I need to get a grip on this thing!

School went fairly well, but I did notice my shoulders were very tired/sore. I was simply lifting papers out of the huge stack I had graded, and handing them back to the students. They must have gotten a good back workout yesterday (shoulders must have taken a brunt of it).

My students were fairly good today, though they did seem a little more active than normal. Then again, we did a practice for our language arts PAT today (2+ hours of writing), so I guess I can expect the pent-up energy.

After work, I had to wait for my husband to come pick me up, which was totally fine because I was able to get some more things done at work, and when he finally came, I absolutely refused to take work home with me tonight. After taking over my life so much, I needed a night off. This was a phenomenal feeling.

At home, my husband straight-up told me that I had to take a nap before the gym. I chose not to argue, and simply told him I need to eat first, because in the rush of the morning, I had not packed food, and therefore was only able to eat the organic and natural carrot/curry/coconut soup that was in my fridge, as well as two containers of Greek yogurt. I was not running on anything much for fuel.

Strangely enough, this is where it hit me: I was craving healthy food! In fact, with all of the things in our house, I wanted fruit, cottage cheese, and pumpkin spice Nuts n’ More peanut butter. Seriously! I was in love and so happy this is what my body was craving.

My nap turned into a 4-hour sleep. And I felt awful when I woke up. My body ached so badly, my limbs barely functioning to move, and my eyes could barely stay open. But this is when my body hit autopilot, and somehow, I changed my clothes and made it downstairs.

On the way to the gym, I did something I never do, nor do I usually advise doing. I had my usual iced coffee, but also a doughnut. I researched ahead of time, and picked a doughnut that was lower in fat, and mediocre in carbs. The reason for my decision was the simple fact that my body was in need. It needed a carb that would energize me quickly (gym was only 2 minutes away). The truth is, I didn’t even want a doughnut. I try to avoid a lot of sugar like that. I wanted to stop eating it after two bites, but I knew it would help. So yes, I ate a doughnut.

We got to the gym, and I expected to feel worse than yesterday; the mental battle, the lack of ability, but I was totally wrong. Tonight was legs, and I normally hate, no, despise leg workouts. But today, I loved it! I don’t know where the energy and motivation came from, but it was undeniably there. I killed my workouts, things seemed easier, I felt stronger and I was smashing my records. Here are some of the things that were different:

1. I normally struggle with 70 lbs on prone leg curls. It seemed so semi-easy tonight!
2. I was mentally thinking that 90 lbs was the weight I used for seated leg curls last time, curled it, found it easy, only to find that the most I had used was 85 lbs in the past!
3. For the first time ever, I did smith machine lunges. Wow, these killed me, but I could tell were working my legs well.
4. I normally hate barbell walking lunges, and tonight my coach wanted us to drop the back knee twice each time instead of the normal once when walking. I dreaded them before I did them, did them and LOVED them!
5. Normally, I find leg press heavy. I don’t know how else to describe it than that. I completed my regular presses with 120 lbs, thinking that was bigger than normal. But for some reason, I was in a stellar mood and decided to do another set with 180 lbs. I ALMOST got my husband to spot me, in fact I even walked over to him, but then decided I need to do this on my own. Well, let me tell you, I did it! Every single rep, and it was not as hard as I thought. So I decided to do more. And I raised it to 230 lbs. And you know what? I did it for 10 reps! Oh my goodness! I was so happy, so ecstatic. Almost double the weight I’ve been using to train, and yet I am so much more capable. I was SO happy!

And again, we went home, and what did my body crave? Cottage cheese, fruit, raw veggies, and pumpkin spice Nuts’ N More peanut butter. Honestly, what more could I ask for? I crave a healthy diet, I’m growing increasingly stronger, and I feel great. My body may not be losing the fat I want, and as a matter of fact, quite a few of my clothes seem to be fitting tighter, but when I consider the shape my body is taking, the progress I’ve made both mentally and overall personally, I’m so happy! I’m obviously going to keep my fat in check, and will be monitoring it, but this strength is such a boost in self-esteem; I’m loving it!