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It's been... one year

Well, it will be one year, anyway.
That's what the oncologist said, though my mother said she introduced herself as a medical (as opposed to surgical) cancer specialist.


My father's always told us he never had grandparents, so I guess it's like Dr Laura always says: you get two chances to be in a parent-child relationship (or, in this case, grandparent-child)... once when you're a kid, and once when you grow up to be a parent (grandparent). So if life gives you lemons - in this case, the holocaust to take away all his European relatives - my father has spent the last fourteen years making the most fantastic grandfather lemonade. Ugh. What a lousy, strained metaphor.

I thought it was an empty cliché that they actually tell you how much time you've got left.
I feel like I can barely complain; I mean, one year sounds like a ton of time.
One more Rosh Hashanah. One more Chanukah. One more of everybody's birthday.

I told YM - without specifics - to enjoy the time and memories that he has with his zeidy, and to cherish them for the littles, who will probably not have the memories he does... just as I remember my own grandparents in a way that Sara and Abigail never can: vigourous, independent, not-so-old people with interests and quirks of their own.

On the other hand...
In this family, it takes hours to say goodbye after a simple Sunday-evening supper. We're going to need every minute of that year, I suspect.
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