Giving It All to God
The golf cart Granddad and I were riding in slowly made its way along the winding roads of the cemetery, where we’d come to finalize the arrangements for Grandma’s funeral. The August heat clung to us. It seemed to take forever to reach the burial plot.
“It’s a good thing you’re seeing where everything is because you’ll be back here for me soon,” he said. His voice was as expressionless as his eyes were behind his glasses.
He’s given up, I thought. I opened my mouth to console him, but no words would come. This is what happens. A couple that’s been together this long—76 years—when one dies, the other follows.
For the past five years, I’d helped him care for his beloved wife, Char-ity, as Alzheimer’s disease stole her from us. Now he needed me to help him find his footing again, a reason to live. But I was grieving too. And one thing I knew about Granddad: Once he got fixed on something, there was no changing his mind.
At 97, my grandfather, Clifford
