Happy Birthday, Grampa!

My grandfather turned 80 today.

He’s a strange duck, my grandfather, and the more I think of him, the odder he seems to become. He’s nothing like I think of typical 80 year old men to be, but then again, he’s exactly like that.

He’s set in his ways, and can be a cranky, cantankerous auld bird, but he loves me in exactly the way I understand grandfathers to love their granddaughters. There’s something about his old Yankee spirit that speaks directly to my own.

He seems equally as happy in his ratty old chair as he does out in the woods or on his tractor.

He wears long sleeves year round. I’ve never seen the man’s knees.

He hugs me without hesitation and allows my daughters to crawl all over him, but he’s never been outwardly affectionate.

He is quick to laugh, but not at just anything. One of the things that makes me feel special around him is how often *I* can make him laugh.

He will almost never ask for help, but will be the first to offer it.

He adores my children in a way that has never given them a moment’s pause to realize that we are not related to him by blood.

He loves my grandmother in a way that, more often than not, drives her to the brink. We laugh about that, she and I, but she knows that she chose well when she married him, some 55 years ago.

He’s going deaf, but staunchly refuses to admit this. We’re just not speaking clearly enough.

I love this man with a sublime, profound kind of connection that goes far beyond simple admiration or affection. He is a kind of kindred spirit to me, and I’m grateful to have been adopted into his family some twenty years ago.

Happy birthday, Grampa!