I promised you an update and I will do that soon.  For now, what I can tell you is, I never realized just how much I would miss all of you when I was going through something really shitty.  To summarize, I’ve spent the last 5 days at the hospital watching the grandfather that I stubbornly hadn’t spoken to in two years deteriorate.  He has been unconscious the entire time which means he never got to hear me say I’m sorry, that I love him, that we are both totally bullheaded, hard headed and stubborn but he wins I give up and I’ll say sorry first.  I learned one thing from him.  In fact it wasn’t learned it was bread in my genes (aside from a raging temper, the need to be right, and being one stubborn son of a bitch) the art of cooking came from him.  He is the reason I don’t use a recipe and on the off chance I do I always change it.  The reason I cook from taste.  He was the reason that for so many years I cooked every meal with love.  He is the reason my kitchen is full of All-Clad, Les Creuset and Wusthof.  The reason Henckle knives have been banned from my kitchen.  In fact, hes the reason I have fingers because he was the only person who could explain to me how NOT to cut them off while cutting a tomato. Needless to say I can’t cook anything right now. I was able to walk in the kitchen long enough to get coffee but in the end I had to drive to the store at 730 this morning to buy a lunchable because packing Brandon’s lunch was too much.

The last few months I’ve said over and over I’ve lost the luster in the kitchen.  I don’t love to cook anymore.  It doesn’t thrill me I don’t care and I cook only to make sure they have food.  I wonder if my mind wasn’t trying to tell me something.  If it wasn’t telling me to buck up, stop being a shit head and just go see him.  They say kids and animals have a sixth sense, well, I wonder if that part of my heart didn’t have that same sense.  I will spend the rest of my life regretting the things I didn’t say to him.  Or knowing he died never knowing how much I still loved him.  His eyes moved a little and he blinked some and I can only hope he heard all of the stuff I said. Some serious, some stupid, some just to get a response.  But, one thing my grandma could tell my mom and I (his first wife my actual grandma) is that when he died he wanted "I did it my way" on his head stone.  I never got it.  So yesterday when I loaded my moms iPod with Neil Diamond and David Allen Coe, and maybe even a little Willy Nelson, we added Frank Sinatra’s My way on.  And now, my final hope is that in those last few minutes, while he could maybe hear, he heard his final song.  And if you read below, I can’t imagine ever finding a song more perfect for him, or those last moments.  We will be taking him off life support soon and then it is just a waiting game to see how long his body lasts.

Until then, I dedicate this song to him, take a second to read it.

Artist : Frank Sinatra
Song : My Way

And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, I’ll say it clear,
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain.

I’ve lived a life that’s full.
I’ve traveled each and ev’ry highway;
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Regrets, I’ve had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course;
Each careful step along the byway,
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And did it my way.

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried.
I’ve had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that;
And may I say – not in a shy way,
"No, oh no not me,
I did it my way".

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows –
And did it my way!