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Oscar
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Fifteen years ago
My freshman year in highschool.
The christmas band program.
Come home to find the phone ringing off the hook.
Maternal grandfather, seventy-five years old, rushed to the hospital with a massive heart attack.
It had only been a few days since i had seen him last when mother and i stopped by the house on saturday to take Grandma to the mall. He had just come in from working in the yard when i saw him. He sat in his old recliner with a glass of juice in hand with the faint scents of gasoline and sweat clinging to him. His favorite lapdog, Tommy, sitting in the groove between his right leg and the arm of the easy chair, growling at me for not having patted his head before embracing my Grandpa.
The bristly feeling of chin stubble against my face as i kissed him on the cheek.
Mom left me in the house while she rushed off to see how he was doing. Ah hour-and-a-half later she came home, and the look in her eyes told me all i needed to know before the words escaped from her.
It was 9 in the evening and Dad was still at work and my brother was stationed in Okinawa at the time.
Mom broke down and cried in my arms.
For whatever reason, i didn't cry much beyond a few brief sobs until after Christmas was over.
For P.G. Saenz, 1910 - 1985
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001218
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