Remembering Grandpa...

On Monday morning I received a phone call from my father letting me know that my grandpa, Stan Connors, up in Kalispell, Montana had passed away. This still came as a bit of a shock despite the fact that I had been pre-warned that the doctors said they didn’t think he had much time left. My grandfather had been dealing with a lot of health issues, the main was dementia. Then about a week to two weeks ago he had an accident and fell and broke his hip. It was at that point that the doctors decided that surgery was not an option since the rehab would be nearly impossible and that they expected that he didn’t have much time left…

I will always remember my grandfather for the family vacations that we went up to Kalispell and stayed with him and grandma up in Kalispell. We made the trip so often that I’m pretty sure I could still drive up there and make the way to where the old house used to be. Grandpa was the man that introduced me to baseball, to Cubs Baseball, we used to watch the games on his TV every summer. During some of the games Grandpa would close his eyes while listening to the game. Sometimes as I was a little one I was tricked in that Grandpa wasn’t sleeping but still listening to the game! I learned a lot about baseball and a lot about life while visiting my grandparents.

I remember one of the highlights in my youth was when I stayed up there one summer I was allowed to drive the riding lawn mower. I being the kid I was drove it like a race car speeding around the front yard and not doing a very good job of mowing the lawn. I also know I ate a lot of ice cream that summer, funny now that I barely eat any ice cream maybe I just really over did it that much up there!

I will always remember my grandfather for the great man that he was. I’m happy that I didn’t see him during his later years while the dementia and everything was setting in. It makes it easier for me to just remember him the way he was and for the way in my heart he will always be.

Grandpa you will be missed, but now you can watch all of the Cubs games from up in heaven, maybe this might actually be the year…