Happy Birthday, Grandpa Sam

[copied from dland]

**In 27 days I will be 50 years old**

Okay, I know it's time for me to stop doing this, but today would have been Grandpa's birthday. Let's see, it's 2002, so if he were still alive, he would be ... 110.

Perhaps I'm being a little unrealistic here. When he died 31 years ago, I was 18, and his presence in my life was so strong that I couldn't imagine going on without him. So every year I would imagine what it would be like if he hadn't died. For a while it seemed realistic enough. When I was 21 he would have been 81, celebrating my birthday; that was possible. He would only have been 85 at my wedding; people live to be 85 all the time. He would have been 92 when my first daughter was born. Hey, didn't his own brother live to 92, and their mother to 96? It could have happened!

I'm not sure when it got to be weird, I guess ten years ago when he would have been 100. Not so many people make it to 100. And now I've got to make peace with it: he's not coming back. I mean, I knew of course that he wasn't coming back.

But he never would have seen me reach 50, not under any circumstances, not under the best possible health, and here's 50 coming up fast. What would it have been like for him, to see his grandchildren all grown now, and one of them a grandmother herself? It would have been some ride.

But no transfer at the end of the line, not even for a guy who spent half his life riding the New York City subways.

What the hell. Happy Birthday, Grandpa. Love you.


ENTRY #29