the sun will always shine where you stand

My Pop Pop is sick. Really sick. Not getting better sick. I flew down to Florida to spend some time with him this weekend. I'm very glad that I did.

There's something about a Pop Pop or a Poppy or a Grandpa or whatever, where you always still feel like a little girl when you are with them. I was only 5 when my Poppy died, so I really was still a little girl when I was with him, but even at 30, sitting watching football with my Pop Pop, looking over as his eyes close -- as they have in front of the TV for as long as I've known him -- I still feel like a little girl.

When he shuffled over to put his arm around me on his way to a nap the day I arrived, I squealed with total joy, like I did when I wasn't even in school yet and he'd drag my little hand on his scratchy 5 o'clock shadow at the end of the day, just to hear me laugh.

We went out to the American Legion on Saturday, his first time out since the big stinking diagnosis in August. When they asked me what I wanted, I picked the same beer as him. He hadn't seen his friends in a long time and they were all coming around and they were just lovely. But I kept looking over to check on him, see if I could see anything in his face that said he needed something or was hurting or wanted to leave. And the one time I caught his eye, he winked and smiled. My heart got so full of happy that I had to cry right there. And right now again. That and the shuffle hug and the look on his face when I first arrived are right up there in the greatest moments of my life, I tell you.