'bout half

This morning my grandpa's long fight with pneumonia, lung disease, and congestive heart failure ended. Just a few weeks ago, he and my grandma celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary. Can you imagine being married for sixty years? And they weren't even tired of each other yet!

I'm really close with my grandparents. My sister and I used to spend a few weeks each summer at their house in Columbus. Every year, I couldn't wait for those weeks. They were the best. I spent countless hours sitting on their front porch reading. My grandpa sat there too, just watching the world go by. And every Friday night he'd say, "Sierra, are you going to yard sales with me tomorrow?" "Yes, I'm going." "Well, you better get up early." My grandpa definitely did not believe in sleeping in, especially on yard sale day. My sister and I would climb in his truck and we'd drive up and down High Street, yelling out signs for yard sales.

My cousin Nikki would come over and stay with us too. That's when we would really drive grandpa crazy. We had water fights that somehow involved us running from the back door of the house, through the house, to the front door, and off the porch to attack someone. He didn't appreciate the trail of water we left behind. Then we'd go upstairs and play with the adjustable beds that former Governor Rhodes handed down to my grandparents (my grandma worked for the Governor for many, many years). We loved pushing the buttons to make those things go up and down, up and down. And my grandpa, who was inevitably downstairs watching TV, would yell, "you girls better quit it!"

I call my grandparents a lot. I used to call them more often, when I didn't have to time phone calls around the happiness of my children. Every time I talked to my grandpa, I'd ask him how we was doing and he'd say, "Oh, 'bout half." Every time. I think I'm really going to miss hearing that.