Birthday Cards

When I was younger, my grandparents were easily the coolest grandparents in the world.

I mean, everyone thinks their grandparents are cool (you know, except for those people whose grandparents get them socks for Christmas and stuff), but really mine were the best. I didn't see them much - they lived about an hour away. Every time I did see them, though, it was sure to be an adventure.

My grandmother was a beautiful, intelligent, warm woman who, unfortunately, passed away a few years ago due to cancer. She was everything I could ever hope to be in the world. She was sunny, and bright, and vibrant. She was always laughing, always smiling. She loved The Sound of Music, she loved The Wizard of Oz. She loved Logic Problems and Bingo scratch tickets and perfume. When I was tiny, she let me sit at her vanity and put on lipstick, and she helped me blot it on a tissue. She let me try instant cappuccino when I was eight, even though she warned me that I would hate it. She helped me through my first bee sting, she rode with me in my first car. She cheered louder than anyone at my fourth grade play, at my high school graduation. And she loved, with all of her heart, my grandfather.

They say that behind every great man, there is a great woman. With my grandparents, I feel like it was the other way around. While my grandmother was loud and laughing, my grandfather was quiet and contemplative. I am lucky, at the age of twenty-seven, to still have him in my life. He is strong, and sweet, compassionate. He had a meticulously maintained video collection when I was little, but he didn't get mad when I recorded over one somehow. He bent and folded plastic cups into artistic masterpieces. (In fact, he still may.) He told me once, in secret, that I was his favorite grandchild, and I know that it was true. He was, and still is, the master of the grill. Cookouts that he is in charge of always have an incredible, unique smell to them - and it is the best thing you will ever smell in your life.

My grandparents took me everywhere as a child. Once, they took me to a renaissance fair, and they waited patiently while I tried to find a needle in a haystack. They took me to the Von Trapp Family Lodge in Vermont - once by myself, and again later on with Jenny and Steph. The took me to Ben & Jerry's, and we took a tour and sampled ice cream and took pictures with our faces on an ice cream lid. They took me and Jenny to Hershey, Pennsylvania, where the street lamps are shaped like Hershey's Kisses. We posed with men dressed as chocolate bars and taste-tested Whatchamacallits before they were even a real thing. They took me anywhere I could have ever hoped to go, and they laughed and enjoyed themselves with me as much as I did with them.

When my grandmother passed away, it was devastating. She had cancer, and it was aggressive, but she wasn't having anything to do with chemotherapy. So she got sick, and we all watched while she got thinner and weaker, but no matter what happened to her, she did not stop laughing. She was the strongest woman I ever knew, until the very last second there was. Eventually, she moved to hospice, and what happens in hospice happened in hospice. My mom and aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings came and went to see her, but my grandfather stayed by her side. When he needed to leave the room, he would volunteer in the kitchen. And no matter how much I knew for my whole life that my grandparents were in love, I saw him hold her hand for the very first time. I cried when I went to say goodbye to her. She told me not to cry, and the last thing she said to me was, "Thank you."

For the first two decades of my life, every birthday card that I ever received from my grandparents was picked out and written by my grandmother. My grandmother was the queen of birthday cards. No one in the world could pick a card as well as she could. The year that she died, though, I received my first card from my grandfather - and it was perfect. He wrote wonderful, loving things, and the card was the sweetest thing I have ever read.

I thank my grandfather for that moment, because it made me realize one of the most important things I've ever learned. I knew at that point, because of that card, that no matter what happened in my life - no matter how life-shattering, no matter how jarring - that the dust would eventually settle. And everything would be okay.