It was always interesting — almost a bragging point, really — to be able to say into my mid-thirties that I had all four grandparents alive. And now the youngest of the four has died. He was sixteen when he got married!

I sometimes muse, If I had started having children at the age my parents did, my children would be such-and-such by now… (Lately it’s been, I could totally have a kid in high school at this point!) Well, if I’d started having children at the age my grandparents did, by now my eldest would be the age grandpa was when he started having children!

Apparently he had Christmas yesterday. He was too sick over the actual holiday to celebrate, so it got put off for a few weeks. Then he got to see grandma, whom he had been too sick to see for almost as long. I don’t know to what extent she recognized him (this is Alzheimer’s grandma), but they took a picture together. Then he died quietly in his sleep. I can’t think of a more perfect way to go.