• Grampa's Heart Attack


    One afternoon, I was working at my new job at the deli in the Highland Park Market in Manchester, Connecticut. An awkward, shy seventeen year-old girl, I had tried a few part-time jobs before that did not work out for one reason or another – mainly my inability to catch on to the demands of the job. Highland Park Market was a gourmet shop that catered to the wealthier families in the area. A smiling young man walked around with a sample plate of cheese. It was certainly no place where my own parents would shop. My Mom shopped at Shop Rite, carefully planning menus and clipping coupons.

    I knew I was smart – at least book smart, but my social skills were lacking. I had had a difficult adolescence, being bullied throughout elementary and junior high, but especially severely in ninth grade at a Catholic high school. Now at a public school, I had a few close friends, but had a long way to go in terms of general self-confidence. One place I could forget all my troubles throughout these difficult times was at my Grammy and Grampa’s house.

    My Grampa was an amazing man. His blue eyes, gone pale with age, shone so brightly as he beamed at me whenever I came over. I beamed right back at him. He made me feel so loved just for being me. He made me feel special. We had shared a special bond ever since I was very small. I loved to look at pictures of my younger Grampa with black hair, holding me on his knee. He had the same look of pride and love on his face in those pictures that I saw whenever I visited throughout the years. And the baby on his knee was beaming a thousand watt smile. I didn’t remember, but Grammy always told me that my name for Grampa was “Pocky.” She would laugh as she told how I wouldn’t say “Grampa,” so he was known as “Pocky.”

    At the deli, it was a very busy Saturday afternoon. The long line of customers was quiet and patient, sensing that I was new, but that did not calm my nerves. I knew my supervisor was watching my floundering with disapproval. Deep down, I knew I would soon be asked to leave, but I just had to try to get better. I was standing at the slicer, trying to get the meat sliced evenly, when I was hit by a feeling of overwhelming sadness and a vision of my grampa’s face. He looked sad. All I could think was: Grampa, Grampa .

    I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I thought I was losing my mind. There were people waiting. I couldn’t fall apart. I had to pull it together. Then tears started to fall; big, fat tears that there was no stopping. I excused myself to the bathroom and looked at my face in the mirror with fear. What I saw shocked me. The face before me was so utterly, perfectly sad. Perspiring, with glazed eyes and open mouth, I managed to stumble through my shift. The feeling lasted about an hour.

    I walked the long walk home. When I got home, my mother said, “Lois, your grandfather’s ok, but he had a heart attack. He was driving with Grammy and he drove himself to the hospital.” Suddenly it was all clear. The exact time of the heart attack was when I was crippled with sadness at my job. It is entirely possible he was thinking of me and his thoughts reached out to me. That tough man had driven himself to the hospital with terrible chest pain and shortness of breath. My admiration for my grandfather increased tenfold.

    I didn’t last long at the deli. I was transferred to the bakery where they thought it would be easier for me. I was still awkward and shy, but my Grampa’s inner strength and my extra-sensory experience had given me something. While it was not necessarily self-esteem or self-confidence, it was a greater awareness and appreciation of the possibilities within myself, and of my uniqueness.

    My grampa lived for eleven years after that. He passed away when I was twenty-eight. My life had changed and so had I. My parents were divorced and the family was never the same. I got the news when I was at another part-time job in Tucson, Arizona as I sat down at my cubicle to open a letter from my father. But I wept as uncontrollably as I had that day so long ago.

    Nothing like that ever happened to me before or since. I have never shared such a psychic bond with anyone else, not even my husband. I think the love of a grandparent for a child is one of the purest loves and the strongest bonds. I can’t wait to join him in Heaven someday, to run into his arms and hear that familiar chuckle as his blue eyes shine on me.

    I love you, “Pocky.”