I’m talking about Grandroobly’s obit. Aka the old coot or whatever. We called him a lot of goofy names in those last years. In an affectionate way. Heck, his beloved grandchildren made a lot of them up! For most of my life, I called him Dad. And there were times when I did not say it very affectionately. But that’s how it goes when you are a “spirited” child with your own ideas. I don’t know why I still have that yellowed old piece of newsprint posted on the refrigerator. I wrote the dern thing and it is stored in my computer along with about a grizzillion old haphazardly organized photos.

It has been three years today but this is not meant to be a sad post. I have never really felt all that sad, well except when I try to write about it… Anyway. I am convinced that the old coot really did not want to stick around. I am convinced that he knew he wasn’t up to becoming mobile again, at least not in the way he was accustomed to being mobile. I think he knew that even if he could get vertically mobile again, I mean walking on his own two feet, he was probably not going to be able to take his daily walk down to the post office ever again. Or up and down the beach. Or even to and from the beach. What is the point of living if you have to go everywhere in a blasted ambulance? I think rehab was more than he had the strength for.

I have never been a religious person and I don’t have any firm opinions about whether or not there is an afterlife or what an afterlife might look like if there is one. I like to imagine that Grandroobly and The Engineer are gallivanting around somewhere. I always think of them as being together. Flying the Edmund Fitzgerald around our universe or another until the sun goes over the yardarm. Sometimes when I’m alone in the evening, I can hear them clinking their ice cubes on the way down to the beach. They’ll sit down there on the shores of Gitchee Gummee watching the boats go by in front of a sunset that goes on forever.

I suppose I’m afraid to take that old yellowing piece of newspaper down because I’m afraid my dad will start hurling lightning bolts down at me. Like the time I went for a walk after packaging up some of his ashes into little vials for his grandchildren and got caught unawares in a sudden thunderstorm. I’m going to guess that, being an honest old-school banker, his weapon of choice these days is buckets of cow manure.

I’m not going to post a picture of the old coot today. Despite the anniversary, I am feeling forward-looking today. We were walking down by the river yesterday and it was cold and the color scheme featured gray and brown. But there were just a few signs of new life. I was thinking about the changing seasons. Leaves and seed pods from last year are still hanging around and new growth almost not quite started yet. So click here or on the pic for more photos of our latest urban walk down by Barton Dam. There are a lot of things I can’t begin to put into words. I know that I am not quite numb any more. From losing The Engineer and The Old Coot and a bunch of other you-know-what that happened within a couple of years that I won’t detail. I’ve gone on. Miss you, dad. Love you, Mrs. Commander.

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