.:blue:.

I don't even know where to start.

Grandpa "Jack" Thomas is a wonderful, onery, old man with an incredible sense of humor. My sister, Whitney and I always loved to visit him with our dad. We'd take the 4 hour trip up to Iowa to visit Grandpa's antique store he ran with his wife, Betty. (Our biological grandmother, Mary Ann, died from cancer when I was 4--I wear one of her rings as my wedding ring today). Grandpa, up until a few years ago, would still make several trips down to Jefferson City each year to help my dad out with projects at the Ecco Lounge (the restaurant my dad has owned and managed for many years) and generally just to visit. Grandpa was a sign painter and an entrepreneur extraordinaire. When Dad was growing up, Grandpa had many businesses. He really was a jack of all trades. When he'd come down to Jefferson City, he'd handpaint and re-letter a sign for Dad telling people the parking lot was just for Ecco Customers, or to please wait to be seated in the dining room, or to touch up the smiley face he painted onto one of the lamp posts in the lot behind the Ecco.

Grandpa had the touch--he could always make Whit and I laugh with his antics and general old-man-shenanigans. I can't even describe to you what he'd say or do that would make us laugh so hard or smile so big--he just did that to people. When we'd visit Iowa when we were younger we'd always go check out his new Donald Duck and Jack Sprat pieces he'd added to his collection at the antique store. Dad would always try to convince him to open up a branch at the Lake of the Ozarks, where he'd make a killing, but Grandpa would always shake his head. It was then that I realized these businesses were never about the money for Grandpa, it was just about enjoying life. He loved what he did and where he was. On these visits, Grandpa would take us down to the basement of their shop where he had his wordworking tools and show us his high rise birdhouses--some seven stories tall and all hinged to open for easy cleaning. Next we'd walk up the stairs adjacent to the store (he had painted numbers on each of them all the way up so when they were carrying anything up or down they'd know when they'd come to the end) to he and Betty's apartment. They always had several cats which, of course, Grandpa spoiled and Betty chided him for. There were always new contraptions in the house that Grandpa had invented and made to make life a little easier or a little more fun. Grandpa would tease and you would hear Betty, in her good natured way, saying "Jack!" in the background.

Sometime last year (or maybe it was the year before, it's hard to remember) Dad told me on the phone one day that the doctors thought that Grandpa was in the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Betty ended up driving him down to Jeff City last Memorial Day where we all got to spend some time together. Grandpa definitely had less energy and was a little slower, but he was still, essentially, the same Grandpa Whit and I grew up loving.


(Here's a photo I took of him at the time)

(You can also see a picture we took together of Grandpa, Whit, Dad, & I here.) Dad called me earlier this summer and said Grandpa was getting progressively worse. At the time, he'd been put in the hospital and there didn't seem to be much hope that he would stay with us much longer. Whit & Dad were able to visit him shortly thereafter, at which point they'd discovered that his bad spell was due to some medications they had put him on and once he was taken off, he was much better. Dad went up a week ago and when I called him and asked about Grandpa, the tone of his voice didn't sound very optimistic. Though life hasn't slowed down yet for Brian & I (in fact, it's really sped up), I knew that we had to make the time to go. The stars aligned and Whit, Dad, Brian and I were all able to make it up yesterday to see Grandpa. Dad told us that Grandpa was now in an assisted living home but I didn't realize the extent to which his dementia had progressed. When I first saw him I didn't recognize him. This man who, just a year ago, was laughingly telling us how he had recently lost his driving privileges when he mistakenly turned too quickly when he was trying to make it to a McDonald's and turned into train tracks and got the van stuck there. Now he was confined to a reclining chair with wheels in a private room in a home.

Here was our Grandpa, but he had changed--he was thinner, his eyes weren't focusing on any of us, his shaven face bore the telltale marks of someone whose face is shaven by someone else, and his arms were covered with the same flesh-colored sleeves you see on the other nursing home patients that are either for circulation or protection from rubbing.




Betty's oldest daughter, Theresa, was there when we arrived and helped coach us at the beginning. I'm sure that she could see that we were all feeling overwhelmed and helpless. She gently let us know that Grandpa liked his hand to be held, that we needed to continually ask him questions and keep him engaged about the past because it would jog his memory and awaken him a bit, and that we needed to be very very close to him when we talked. I fought tears most of the morning and tried to rememer the old times and to bring him back there. What broke my heart was that partway through our visit, as he became more aware, Grandpa kept asking us to take him to our car and get him out of there. He asked us, in one of his sharper moments, if we'd like to be confined to a place every day and be so helpless. He asked us to drive him to Kansas City and promised he'd call Betty from the motel room. Dad, Whit, and I tried to laugh and smile and treat it like a joke because we all knew there was no way we could take him away but at one point he got flustered and said, "No, I'm serious, people!". What do you say to that when you really wish you could take him away? I cannot even begin to imagine what it's been like for Betty to watch her best friend deteriorate in this way and feel helpless to do anything about it. I can't think about what I would do if I had to watch this happen to Brian. Brian took a few pictures of all of us together. I asked him to because sometimes, even if I don't feel like taking pictures, I know later I'll regret it because some moments just need to be documented so that we can't forget them.

Whit & I took turns for most of the time holding his hands while Dad took the other. He would squeeze onto them, he knew we were there.





I finally officially asked Grandpa if I could personally take his picture and he said that'd be fine. He immediately put his hands to the brim of his hat, which it was hard to tell if he was being onery or if he had just decided at that moment that the sun was too bright. Whit gently took his hands for the next photo and I told him to smile.

Later that afternoon, Grandpa told Dad that if he liked his hat, he could take it. Dad laughed and said, "I don't need your hat, Dad, you keep it." Dad told us on the way home that there was a reason behind Grandpa offering Dad his hat. Dad said many years ago he told Grandpa that he didn't want anything from him, but that someday when Grandpa passed away, Dad wanted the LA Dodgers hat back that he had given him. Even though the Dodger's hat wasn't the same one Dad had given Grandpa many years ago, he was still offering. He remembered.

Dad took us through What Cheer, Iowa, his hometown on our way back. I didn't get my camera out fast enough to get photos of the motel that Grandpa ran nor the home he built a block away all by himself but I did snap the photo below of the spot where the old Thomas Foods grocery store was. Dad said it had three aisles at the time. Now it's just an abandoned, empty lot.

Coincidentally, across the street there is a Thomas Grocery. Dad said there's no relation.

Here's the back side of the home Dad first lived in. He said Grandpa added quite a bit to it and you can see the faint outlines on the edge of the photo of the garage that Grandpa built by himself.

Grandpa is an amazing man. I'm glad we went to see him yesterday. I feel like there's so much more of him I wish I knew.