January 14, 2006

• My grandpa passed away peacefully early Thursday (3 am, Jan. 12) . His body finally just shut down. My grandma and mom stayed the night at the hospital that night. He had a brief seizure and the nurses woke them up. They got to go in and see him one last time. He died five minutes later with the two of them at his side.
  
  Friends and family have helped out a lot. We have more food than we know what to do with. A lot of others have just stopped by to talk. The blood drive I spoke of below has gone great...more have donated blood than what he required, so people are simply giving in his name out of love.
  
  The man who keeps track of such things at the blood center made a remark - "Another? I've never heard of Leighton Mcleod, but he must've been quite a guy." He was quite a guy. He wasn't a pillar of the community; he wasn't on billboards; he didn't reach out to people in big ways. He was just extremely friendly, and had a sharp mind. It was like he could remember everything that every happened to him. And as soon as he remembered something, he was telling someone about it. He could carry on a conversation with a sign post. A handful of stories would come into his mind when any little thing happened or was mentioned. If you were telling a story and he thought of something, you'd go ahead and take a twenty minute break.
  
  He was always telling vivid stories about his early life farming, or his time in the military as a young man, or his 30+ years of service to Fayetteville Parks and Rec. maintenance. He would tell stories about how he had saved the city loads of money with his creative ways of doing things with the parks and playgrounds around town. Back when he was working, he would get so annoyed with some of the other guys he was working with - he would get annoyed when they didn't truly care about what they were doing. He took pride in everything he did.
  
  He loved to hear Jeremy and I play the guitar. He also liked to hear me play the piano. He always wanted to play the guitar. His father played. He would tell us about how his dad could walk the bass line on the strings while playing. He'd show us how he would fingerpick, and tell us about the time another guy told his dad that he couldn't play without looking at his fingers. His dad took the bet, and, with guitar raised behind his head like Jimi Hendrix, continued to play. He also told us about the "bumble-bee" where you slide your finger all the way up a string to the end of the fretboard, then smack the guitar for a percussive noise. I also remember a story about the time one of his army friends played bar tunes on a piano so hard he broke it.
  
  When he came over, I often wouldn't know. I would be playing guitar at my computer, and he would stand at the doorway, silent and listening, until I finally stopped. In November on Courtney's birthday (two weeks before he went into the hospital), I sang him the only old country song I know - Hank Williams' Your Cheatin' Heart. He was delighted. I might be singing a song at his funeral. I'd like to do something like that for him, but for me, it doesn't have to be at his funeral, or anything explicitly announced as 'for him' necessarily.
  
  I'm not coming undone or anything. It's been such a long process. He missed out on Christmas, still in ICU. I think I'll miss him more around times I definitely would've seen him - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, my birthday, others' birthdays. He was not as old as some, but at 72, he was old enough that I knew there was always a possibility of losing him to health conditions.
  
  My only real concern is my grandma and mom. My grandmother especially - she does not let go of things well. She doesn't just see the glass as half empty. She'll mope about it, and let it stop her from carrying on normally. She had a terribly tough time when her other daugther passed away a few years ago. She blames herself for a brother's death in '57 because she was washed clothes on New Year's Day. I didn't even know that was a superstition. She grew up in a superstitious farming household with 9 siblings; she was the youngest. I hope she can put it behind her.
  
  I've just remembered that he bought a guitar a few months ago at a yard sale. I think I'll fix it up.

  • 1:37 am
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