Cards and Unconditional Love

It was during that intermediate period of my grandfather's health, where it had started to decline and he was relatively inactive, but yet he was still alert, at home, but able to still get up some on his own.

I was playing a card game with my grandfather. He was laying on his back on the old green davenport in the living room, and I sat on me knees on the floor beside him. At one point I remember him telling me his chest hurt, which worried me, as I knew his heart issues were a serious matter. I remember how his veins bulged out from his thin arms, dark purple and soft to the touch. I remember how the skin hung loosely down, wrinkled, and marked with large random dark splotches. I remember the rise and fall of his chest, and the white t-shirt he had on.

At the time, I thought I had been terribly clever, surreptitiously (so I believed) sneaking into the hallway closet to stack the deck, so that when I dealt it out for us to play War, we'd continue to match cards over and over. He'd lay down a 3...and...surprise, so would I! I would giggle and act like it was some kind of wondrous coincidence. He would lay down a jack, and so would I. He would lay down a 5, and so would I. The cards would pile up, so high they would tip over, until suddenly I would draw some card much higher than his, and claim the whole stash.

I remember having fits of uncontrollable laughter, and he would just smile, and nod, until at some point I asked him if he were having fun. "No," his genuine reply was. I was startled. I had believed that he must be having fun--otherwise, why play at all? And in my confusion, he explained to me...he thought the game of War was boring, he didn't like it at all, but I liked it, and he knew it would make me happy, so he played even though he didn't really want to.

This was a new idea for me. It tumbled over and over in my young mind, and sank in at a deep level. My grandfather had just gently introduced me to the idea of doing something for someone else, simply because it was important to the other person. It's an idea I still try to take to heart, and I appreciate my grandfather introducing it to me.