38

Thirty-eight.

The number of years I was given filled with my Grandpa Chet’s hugs.

And no-one hugs like my Grandpa Chet hugs.

———

I can’t eat mint chocolate chip ice cream without being transported back to his living room, sitting in my pajamas watching ‘I Love Lucy’ or ‘I dream of Genie’ re-runs.

A chocolate shake or a Maid-Rite have me instantly sliding into a booth with him at Big T for coffee.

Autumn fills me with vibrant memories of jumping into piles of leaves taller than me—piles he raked up over and over again, just so Cody and I could dive in.

Anytime I hit a gravel road, I’m eight years old again, searching for wild blackberries or raspberries on a summer night’s country drive, the windows rolled down.

The way he’d speak about my grandma, his love and admiration for her, retelling me the story of how he fell in love with her at first sight set me up for unreasonable standards for love. That is, until I met Trent who later told me he knew the moment he saw me.

Anytime the stars were out he’d point at one and ask, “Do you see that? That’s my Katie star!” explaining to me that’s is the same star we could both see at the same time no matter how far apart we were. And somehow that made the moves across the globe not seem so far away.

The smell of oil and grease takes me back to his clock workshop. Pressing my chin against the workbench, watching intently as he replaced the tiniest of gears.

Ohhhhhh, [exhale] the clocks. The clocks, the clocks, the clocks. The tick, tick, tick will forever remind me of his steady love for me, his unshakable faith in God (and his Iowa Hawkeyes). Never wavering. Constant.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

———

I squeezed him one last time.

Okay, three.

Three last times in a row, I wrapped my arms around him in his hospital bed last night.

Just me and him. And the ticking of the wall clock.

I kissed his forehead and asked myself, out loud for him, one final time, “Do you know how much I love you?”

He squeezed my arm- HARD- and tried to say our line. The words he told me every single time I said goodbye—to cross oceans, state or county lines, or until the next phone call.

Every.
Single.
Time.

“I love you this much,” I said for him. And I squeezed back. HARD.

Tick.
Tick.
Tick.

“Yes, I know. I know you love me so much. But I love you more,” I repeated.

Over and over and over again, I repeated.

I love you so much.

I love you more.

I love you so much.

and I love you more.

For 38 years.

———

I hope you got just one of his hugs during his 86 earthly years with us.

It might be just enough to hold you through the pain of losing him.