It's a Love Story: Chapter 6

Check out Chapter 5 here.

A few weeks passed with us still doing dates on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  We signed up for a Argentine Tango Dance Lessons that we started in Mid-September.  They were on Wednesday nights and we had a lot of fun with them.  On our one month anniversary RS made me a special CD with songs he'd downloaded that fit our relationship.  One of the first songs was "What a beautiful day" by Chris Cagle.  It goes like "Counting my blessings and knowing.  Oh we had our ups and downs all along the way.  She had a chance to leave but chose to stay.  What a beautiful day."  Love that song....

Then the last song on that CD was the one we danced our first dance to at our wedding...so it really was perfect.  It was "In your dreams" by Josh Turner.  Another great song! :)  I had that CD in my Explorer forever.  Well, literally because it got stuck in the in dash CD player.  But also, I just loved it so much I memorized every lyric!  I love/d it! : )

On Saturday September 8th, 2007, RS took me up to Box Prairie.  He made a campfire and we cooked dinner over it.  Then we watched the sunset, and roasted marshmallows for s’mores.  It was a clear night and so pretty with the campfire.  Once it was dark, we loaded the car up and RS took me home.

He walked me to the door, and for some reason he walked me inside.  My mom was waiting up for me, which wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, but that night she had this look on her face.  I don’t know how I knew, but I knew just what it was.  I asked her if it was what I thought it was, and it was.  Her father had passed away, and she didn’t want to ruin my evening by calling me.  So she just waited until I got home to tell me.

My Mom and I embraced and cried.  And then RS embraced me as well.  It was the first time he had ever seen me cry.  My sweet grandpa had just passed away.  My sweet grandpa who used to take my family out to Village Inn for Funny Faces whenever he came to visit.  My grandpa who was only about 5’8” but was the strongest man I knew.  My grandpa who was a Veterinarian for over 50 years.  My grandpa who never got to meet this incredible man I had just started dating.

You know, it was all so bittersweet though.  Because of course I was sad that I’d never get to see him and talk to him again.  But I also knew he was out of his pain.  It still hit me, and my whole family hard though.  My sisters and I had been really fortunate to be able to grow up with all four of our grandparents around.  We got to spend holidays and birthdays will a lot of family, and I guess I never really appreciated it until part of it was gone.

My grandfather’s funeral was planned for the following Friday, and my sister who was living in KY flew out with her little daughter for it.  Over that week between his death and the funeral, I got to spend a lot of time with my sisters, parents and aunts/uncles/cousins.  (And also some time with RS of course.)

The funeral itself, although for such a sad occasion, was nice.  It was a time for remembering what kind of a man he was, the life he had and what he left behind.  My family got to see people within our family that I don’t think I’d ever met before.  We even managed to get quite a few good family pics of generations and such.

After the reception my sisters (and their respective kiddos) and my parents headed up to the cabin.  RS wasn’t able to get off work for the funeral, but picked me up and we made our way to the cabin too.   We all had a nice weekend away from civilization and spending time together.  My sis from KY got to meet RS for the first time too.

To be continued.....