The kind of man he is . . .

Isaac recently had a writing assignment for which he asked me about my favorite childhood memories.
There's nothing like a question like that to open up the floodgates of remembrance.
I needed to provide three of them for his essay.
I pulled two general memories, 1)dinner time, because throughout my growing up, the family dinner table was an important place where we all gathered, no matter where we had been separately that day, and each of us would takes turns sharing the "highlight of our day," and 2) playing with my cousins, who were really more like my siblings, anyway. We got in all manners of mischief, and had so much fun doing it!
But there was one very specific memory that popped into my head, too.
I can see this favorite memory in my mind's eye almost as clearly as if it were happening this very moment.
The December I was five, I lived with my grandpa and grandma at their home (a church parsonage) in New Jersey.
Here's some background . . . I was a bit of a grandpa's girl. If he was home, you'd find me curled up next to him on the couch while he told me stories, illustrating them on the spot (he can draw an awesome duck out of a figure eight); or singing along as he played his guitar or plunked the keys on the old cherry wood piano; or being mesmerized by his games of "fly away Jack, fly away Jill" and "invisible ball; or outside playing in the yard as he raked and swept the pavement or tended his garden which grew along the fence.
I missed my mom when we were not together, but when I was with gram and gramp, they were my world . . . and what a world they were!
I remember sitting between them in the front seat of their powder blue such-n-such a car, with the cream colored vinyl top, on our way to everywhere, but mostly to the church my grandpa pastored in the next city over. It was a very secure feeling, riding between them.
Back to this particular December when I was five.
It was a few weeks (maybe days, my memory isn't that great) before Christmas.
Grandma was getting ready for her holiday baking.
I was sitting on the kitchen floor in front of the open baking supply cabinet, lining up all the spices and herbs, trying to read their labels, smelling them.
Grandma was racking up a list of things she needed at the store, and Grandpa was home that day (he worked a swing shift of sorts, nights one week, days the next, etc.) so he was assigned the task of making a run to the store for the missing ingredients.
He was in a hurry to go and get back with the needed items, so he got his list together, bundled up to face the cold northeast winter waiting on the other side of the warm kitchen door, and kissed gram, who had walked him to the door, right smack on the mouth before leaving . . . but he forgot one thing!
Me!!
He did not kiss me good-bye! Or say good-bye to me at all, for that matter!
In our family, we always greeted and parted with kisses. We always acknowledged everyone in the room we were either entering or exiting. It's just how it was.
So, grandpa not kissing me or saying good-bye was a HUGE deal to me.
In the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the store, I had been forgotten.
I didn't say anything, but I was stinging, and sat, quiet and sad, on the floor.
It didn't take long for grandma to notice something was wrong.
"Grandpa left without saying good-bye to me," I quietly confided when she had asked me what the matter was.
"Oh, honey. He was in a hurry to go so he can get back to us as quick as he can. He loves you very much . . ." she reassured, then turned my attention to other things.
I just want to point out that these were the days long before cell phones were even thought of, so there was no way for my gram to communicate with my gramp about how crushed I was by his oversight.
When grandpa got back, I was reserved.
Grandma unpacked and put away the groceries, and grandpa sat down next to me at the kitchen table with a little white box tied in red and white string.
That could mean only one thing.
He had been to the bakery!
Whatever was in that box was fresh and sweet and delicious . . . and it was being offered to me.
"I forgot to say good-bye to you and I'm sorry. I bought this special just for you . . . " he pushed the box closer to me.
I opened the box . . . and inside was . . . a vanilla cupcake with a mound of vanilla frosting that looked like a snowy hill, and right on top sat a little plastic Santa, waving from a sleigh drawn by one reindeer (maybe two).
Grandma *tisked* when she saw the Santa. She was not a fan.
I broke into a huge grin.
And things were right again.
I was not forgotten.
Not really.
Gramp realized soon after he left that he had not said good-bye to me, and knew what that would mean to my little girl heart.
He made up for it beautifully.
I kept that little plastic Santa in a special box for a long time throughout the years.
Occasionally, usually when I was rummaging for something else, I'd pull it out and smile, though Santa wasn't who I was thinking of every time I looked at it.
That little Santa is gone now.
Lost in one of my transitions.
But grandpa is still here, sitting with my boys, telling them stories, drawing them pictures, singing with them, playing with them, teaching them.
He cooks for us and bakes for us and cares for us in a thousand little and big ways. That's the kind of man he is.
I am so blessed to have him in my life, to have grown up with him, and to watch my boys growing up with him, too.