Gramps

My grandfather died this past Monday. He was pretty special to me, and it was a hard experience to see him in a state other than smiling, shuffling around, with his pants hiked up to his neck, telling me that whatever I was up to was great as long as I was challenging myself and enjoying it. He was a docent at the Nelson Atkins museum of art in Kansas City for 20 years, and when I was little and visiting from Sacramento, he used to take me on private tours and we would count the dragons in the ceiling of the Asian art room. Then we'd go to Winsteads and I would get a chocolate coke and he would tell the waitress I was his California girl. Each year at Passover seder, when it came time for the kids to hunt for the affikomen, he would give the winner as a prize crisp $1 bills that he'd peel off from a little pad like a flip book that he'd get special at the bank. I've never seen anyone else with those money pads. The man got manicures into his 90's. Oh and that photo is gramps at his 90th birthday party a few years ago next to his portrait by Andy Warhol. At his funeral, my dad placed a highball glass of Crown Royal on the rocks on a stand with flowers next to his casket. That was gramps.