Superheroes

My grandfather passed away in 2009, if I remember correctly. My grandmother had passed the year before or so. Anyway, when I think of my grandparents I think about what their house seemed like when I was little. They lived in this huge house on top of a hill just outside of Tekoa, Washington. It seemed like a castle to me, towering over the much smaller houses beneath it. And the King and Queen lived inside. Those were my grandparents. As you entered the house usually the Queen (my grandmother) was in the kitchen preparing something. And then you went into the living room and the King (my grandfather) was on his throne with his feet up either watching tv or checking the back of his eyelids for holes. He wasn't sleeping. Not at all. And some people thought that throne was just an ordinary recliner. Nope! It was a throne. But make no mistake, we all knew that when it came down to it, it wasn't the King that was in charge. You wanted anything you went to the kitchen and asked the Queen. Grandpa may have thought he was in charge from time to time, but he was sadly mistaken. And I always thought he'd be around. I knew my grandma was human and she'd be gone someday. (Not that it made it any easier to lose her.)I knew because  she'd been cranky with me at times. Not grandpa. He was always good natured. He'd never gotten mad at me that I can remember. I thought he was some sort of Superhero. There seemed to be nothing he could not do. If he did go down it was going to be in a blaze of glory! A colt was going to kill him or some boating accident. He had sang in a quartet, played baseball for the Spokane Indians. They weren't the Spokane Indians yet, but it was the same team we know as the Spokane Indians today. He only didn't go on to play in the MLB because it would have taken too much time away from his family. They didn't pay them enough in those days to just take the family on the road with you. He was a wheat farmer. He had more wheat fields than anybody I knew. He had a stallion and a whole slew of mares, so he could breed his own horses. And of course, he trained them himself. Later, he started giving colts to my dad to train. He gave me a colt when I decided I wanted to train a horse. Me and that horse didn't get along very well, but that's a story for another time. And he loved to fish and was good at it. He had a motor boat and a motor home and when I was little he'd take us to all kinds of campgrounds in that motor home. Great times! He never really got upset about anything that I know of. And he spoiled us grandkids just like a grandpa should.

And then I got a phone call. He had 6 months to live. Cancer! It had metastasized into his bones or however you say that. Talk about a long ways from a blaze of glory!! By the time I got to go see him, he was nothing but skin and bones. He was in nothing but a diaper and couldn't speak. He just made grunting noises. There was nothing left of my Superhero. In my mind, he came crashing down to earth in that moment. I told him I loved him and I was going to miss him. He died the next day. He only lasted a few weeks from the time they told us 6 months. It's almost like he decided, okay, this is the way I'm going to go. Grandma had died the year before and I just don't think he really wanted to live without her. I could be wrong. But one thing I knew for sure at that time. My grandfather was human just like me. He was a pretty amazing human, but he was human.