I’d like to say something here to my Grandfather, Leonard Solomon. My Facebook friend since 2008. The best man at my wedding. I don’t know anyone else like you. You are just a special person. I never heard you be self deprecating. I never heard you curse. I never heard you take credit. I’ve known you over forty years and the first time I ever heard you complain was a month ago when you heard how much it cost for a private nurse to attend to you. You didn’t want him. It didn’t suit you. You were a proud guy, but quietly proud. You liked to drive yourself and pay for dinner. Every time you picked up the phone you when I called you said the same thing. You said “hey fella.” Those two words, you saying it, was my favorite thing to hear in the world. It made me feel calm and loved when you said that to me. Like you were sharing with me a little piece of your specialness, passing it over in just two words. I’d say you are unusually active on Facebook for a 92 year old. I always get a kick when I see you liking my friends posts or engaged in back and forth with Dan Saltzstein. I remember I missed a family event in 2002, the first of many I missed after I moved far away. You took a digital photograph from the event and photoshopped me into the photo. You emailed it to me and you wrote: “You were here.” I remember watching you dance with Grandma at Samanthas wedding. I’d never seen you dance before. You were dancing this sort of perfect cha cha rhythm. You looked really graceful. Sometimes when I’m dancing now I try to dance that same rhythm. That’s the effect you have on me. I sometimes invent reasons to walk through the computer room at my folks house just so I can put my own hand on your shoulders. I invent reasons to touch you. Yesterday I was looking through all my emails from you. There are notes about now-forgotten TV shows I worked on, notes about articles you found online that mentioned my name in passing because your google alert went off. All these emails noticing things I was trying to do and letting me know you were watching. It wasn’t just that you were proud. I always felt I was living a life that you might have lived to if you could have. It bonded me to you. I felt like my achievements were also yours. And your emails, every single one, were signed the same way. Luv Ya. Later in life, when I became an uncle, when my friends started having kids, I noticed I had a knack for talking to children. People complimented me. Grandpa, all I was doing was mimicking how you used to talk to Samantha and me on the audio tapes we made, I’d listened to them so much I internalized how you talked to us And. I’ll do it with my own son too when he’s old enough. I asked you to be my best man it because it made perfect sense to me. You were the best man I knew. I knew you would rise to the occasion. But I truly didn’t know you would rise so much. It’s the best speech I’ll ever hear. It was a highlight of my life. And I know it was a highlight of yours. Because you emailed me afterward and you told me. Grandpa, your life has been lived as well as it possibly could have. And when I’m done here I’ll wonder if I did you justice, and the hard part is you’re the one who would have made me feel like I did OK. I opened Grandpa’s IPAD last night when I got home. It made me feel closer to him to hold something he held as recently as a few days ago. Grandpa was the kind of man who left behind two loving children, three loving grandchildren, three great grandchildren and six open apps. I think I published this because I don’t just want you to live on in our hearts, I want Leonard Solomon to live on in a google cache. Goodbye fella. Luv ya.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 17:02:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015