It's been seven years.
My Pop Pop was a really great guy. We weren't related by blood, which I guess made me realize fairly early on that DNA doesn't necessarily decide who our family is.
His wife had passed away from cancer somewhere around the time my grandfather was killed in an accident. My Dad was just a teenager; my grandmother still young. And they were alone. My grandmother is quite the social butterfly--she especially was when she was younger. So she started going to these square dancing classes through her church (let's talk about a true, Southern Baptist love story here). And they met there. I never knew much of the details; they were never "a couple", I guess. But they loved each other. It's a story I've never really understood, if we're being honest. My Pop Pop was always there when we would visit and they would travel down to North Carolina to see us. He would stay for a few days and then keep driving to Florida to see his kids while my grandma would stay with us. He would pick her back up on his way up North.
I guess they never got together for a few reasons--I truly believe my grandmother never wanted to remarry after my grandfather passed, and I think my Pop Pop felt the same way. And I'm also pretty certain they would either drive each other crazy or kill one another if they actually lived together (he was a clown and my grandma has always been a little bit [or a lot] stubborn--now we know where I get it from). But they loved each other. They loved each other a lot. They would have fish on Sundays and she would make him stuffed cabbage or lasagna or whatever he wanted during the week. With both of their families living so far away, they were all each other had.
He never acted sick. I think he knew he was sick, but he decided to keep it to himself. He had a bad leg, but he never let that stop him. He still went with us to Disney World or would square dance with Grandma in the kitchen while whistling and singing, "Hey good lookin', what'cha got cookin'" over and over until she rolled her eyes and wanted to hit him with her rolling pin and my brothers and I were giggling, rolling around on the floor.
He went in for a simple surgery, and he never woke up.
The one way I always knew he was around was when I could smell his tobacco. He always had his pipe and tobacco on him; it was such a sweet smell and it was so calming to me. After he passed, my Grandma gave me one of his handkerchiefs. I remember trying to only touch it or smell it when I absolutely needed to, because I didn't want that smell to go away.
I never really knew what I believed in, but I believed he was with me after he passed away.
One night, I was driving home from Ft. Lauderdale with three of my friends. We had gone on a road trip to follow one of our favorite bands around Florida and were driving back at two o'clock in the morning because we didn't want to spend money on a hotel (pretty sure my mom doesn't know this story; sorry, mom). I was driving; they had tried to stay awake, but they all ended up falling asleep. I was trying to avoid toll roads so I trusted my GPS to take us on some off-highways or side roads to avoid a major bill driving on a toll road all the way from South Florida to Orlando.
We were on a reallllllly small street--totally dark, no street lights or anything. I was exhausted. I had been awake since six the morning before and I was the one who had been doing all of the driving. I felt tired, but I knew I had to keep going. Out of nowhere (we were literally in the middle of a huge field; no houses, no other streets, no nothing) I was overwhelmed by this smell of tobacco. It was so overwhelming, my eyes widened and I slowed the car down. I looked around--I wanted so desperately to see someone on the side of the street smoking a pipe, or see a house even that would validate the fact that someone could be smoking tobacco nearby. But it just smelled like him.
And when I looked back to the road, there was a family of raccoons staring straight into my headlights that forced me to hit my brakes even harder to avoid colliding with them. My friends all woke up startled, and I just stared at the raccoons as they walked off of the road.
Maybe it was just a weird coincidence.
Maybe there was a house I didn't see, or a person looming in the field somewhere.
But I still like to think it was him. Had I not been so alert and already started to slow my car down, I probably would have plowed through the raccoons and ended up in the ditch by the road. Or maybe I wouldn't have, I guess we'll never know.
All I know is that I miss him. And when I do catch that scent of tobacco, my heart flutters and I thank him for choosing to be my family.
