Mixed Emotions

Halloween means many things to many people - costumes and candy, haunted houses and scary movies, carving pumpkins and decorating cookies. My mom was always really good at costumes when we were little. I remember the whole family being Care Bears one year, complete with little plastic hearts on our bums; Erin and I were once Jem and Kimber of Jem and the Holograms; and one year (when Mom was feeling particularly hippy-ish, I guess) we were Spring and Winter... as in the seasons... but they were cool costumes.

Halloween will always mean something else for my family, though. In late October 1992, my grandfather went to the doctor. Dr. Sanders happened to know my Papa well; his family attended my grandparents' church and his mom and my grandma were friends. Because of this close association, it was easy for him to see that there was something wrong with Papa. His memory was off, he would say things that didn't really make sense. Within a week Papa (whom everybody had thought was perfectly healthy) was in surgery to remove a tumor from his brain. He never woke up. On October 30th, with the knowledge that he would spend the rest of his days unconscious and on life support, it was decided that we should let him go and he died early Halloween morning. I was seven at the time and I will never forget it.

I remember sitting in the waiting room of the ICU late at night with Erin and our cousin Amanda and seeing The Arsenio Hall Show for the first and only time. I remember half dressing in costumes with all of my cousins, but never leaving Grandma's house. I remember the woman who volunteered to watch all nine of us while the adults of the family grieved and dealt with funeral plans. We thought she was horribly mean, because she wouldn't let us run around and act like the crazy kids we were even during a time of mourning. I remember a few brief moments next to Papa's bed hours before he was gone forever.

But mostly I remember what he was to me, even at such a young age. Though he was already in his sixties when I was born, had grey hair and could hardly hear, he never seemed old. He would play on the floor with us, take us to the beach and jump in the waves, throw us in the pool. We're a family of hunters and he would take each grandchild out to shoot their first deer. It was my turn the year after he died and my cousin Jeff was no replacement. The whole family spent Christmas day at their country house in Wimberly and every year Papa would disappear for a bit and then Santa Clause would come walking from the woods, through the meadow to bring us presents, fruit and nuts. The last year they had that house (I would have been five), it occurred to me that Santa Clause and Papa looked an awful lot alike. I think I said something like "heeeeeeyyy..." and immediately found myself with a dozen hands clamped across my mouth.

He was the perfect man in my eyes. He had worked his way up from a bicycle messenger at Nixon Blue Print to owning that very same company. They sold office supplies and logged oil wells and everybody knew his was the best in the business, because he could give you the information for any well off the top of his head. He was devoted to God and to his church. He loved my grandma more than anything in the world. To her dying day, I don't think she ever uttered a single complaint about him. And he would do anything for his children or his grandchildren.

I wish so badly that he had been able to see us all grow up and to meet his great-grandchildren. I miss him every day. Sixteen years later, Halloween is mostly a happy day for me, but it also means a little bit of heartache.