Remembering the Man vs. the Disease

I am 31 years old. It's been 5 years since my Poppop's passing. He lived with his Alzheimer's diagnosis for 15 years, which means I had 11 years with my authentic Poppop before the Alzheimer's began messing with his memory, his personality, and those things that made him "Poppop."

Sometimes, when I'm missing him, it's hard to push out the memories with the disease to hold space for the man. Luckily, he left me with a few things that truly help.

He was an amateur videographer

My Poppop invested in all sorts of cameras when I was growing up. When I was younger, he had the camera that sits on your shoulder as you're filming, the ones that are about the size of a sneaker shoebox with the full-size VHS in the deck. He used this to take hours of film of me and my sister cheerleading.

One video that I have watched multiple times is of my first time on the sidelines as a cheerleader. I was incredibly awkward and am happy that my cheerleading phase did not last long. My Poppop, however, thought this was the most fascinating thing, watching me and my sister, who was a year younger and couldn't officially cheerlead yet, making up her own cheers with her Dollar Store pom-poms ham-ing up the recording time. We were adorable, but what really shows through is this man's dedication to us, his love, and his infatuation with his granddaughters.

He was a woodworker

I spent a good deal of time in the latter part of the good years with my Poppop helping him with his various woodworking projects! Again, this is something my sister and I both enjoyed doing with him.

He taught us how to do wood carving and helped us to carve our names out of planks; we later painted them in rainbow colors and they are still decorating my Mom's house.

He made footstools for all of us little ones with our names on them. Mine has traveled around with me to my various living situations and currently resides in my kitchen. I use it regularly to reach the top shelf and it brings me a lot of joy to still have this thing that Poppop built.

Finally, one of the last projects that I worked on with him was this intricate shelf that's adhered to the wall in my parent's basement (and my old room). It has doors on the top and drawers on the bottom and pegs from which to hang things. It was my secret hiding space for things when I was growing up and today I still use it for things I'd like to leave at my parent's house without them getting in the way of anyone who actually lives there.

My Poppop, the patriarch

I am somewhere in the middle of 15 grandchildren Poppop can claim. The stories and the memories shared between me and my older cousins, who had greater time with him before I knew him, are as wonderous as are the stories and memories shared between me and my younger cousins, who spent more time with him when he was sick.

We still text each other when we see a bald eagle - my Poppop was obsessed with them. We know when we see them that he's near and watching us, at which point I'll send up a little prayer letting him know how much I love and miss him.