I was dirty. My hands were covered with grease and dirt and all the other crap that gets churned up when you mow a Louisiana yard that is about 1 inch in elevation above the local wetlands. My head was aching.

I went inside for a sip of water. The car race was on, same old story; the same guys as always were up front, the same as always in the back. My head was pulsing. I wanted to take a nap, close my eyes and try to dull the vibrations caused by the little gremlin pounding away on my optic nerves with his little gremlin sledgehammer. I climbed into my recliner and put a pillow over my head to drown out the children, the car race, my wife, the damn birds outside.

The phone rang.

"It's your Grandaddy," my wife informed me, looking at the caller ID.

Great. I had just fallen asleep. The little gremlin was doing his best Barry Bonds impression now. A Barry Bonds that actually uses performance enhancing substances. I didn't want to talk to him. He was just going to talk about the same old stuff and everything. He was just going to tell me about his personal problems and everything. He was just going to tell me how he would like for me to drive the six hours to his house so he could see the kids and everything. Why did he have to end every sentence with "and everything," anyway?

"Don't answer it. I'll call him back tonight after we eat supper and get the kids in bed."

Only I didn't. I got busy cleaning up supper, or taking a shower, or ironing my clothes for work, or making Li'l Heavyarms' lunch for school, or playing Guitar Hero, or any of the inane shit that consumes my time between the hours of 5pm and bedtime.

"Dang it," I told my wife as we drifted off to sleep that night, "I forgot to call Grandaddy. You've got to remind me to call him tomorrow night."

Only she didn't. She got busy cleaning up supper, or taking a shower, or putting my daughter Apple to sleep, or grading papers, or making sure Heavyarms didn't forget any of the inane shit that consumes his time between the hours of 5pm and bedtime. By Monday night, it had slipped my mind along with the lawn mower and the car race and everything.

Tuesday my phone rang. It was my dad. "Son, I'm just calling to let you know that Grandaddy was in a car wreck. We don't know how bad he's hurt, but they're taking him to the hospital. I'm always giving my dad a hard time because we have conversations that go like this; him: "Did I tell you that Pop (his dad) was in the hospital last week?" me: "No, you never call to tell me any of that stuff." him: "Oh, well it wasn't a big deal. It was just...(some sort of everyday affliction old men seem to suffer from.)" I didn't think anything of it.

"Okay, well, call me and let me know how he is."

"I will as soon as we know something."

That night, I was in the middle of all the inane shit that consumes my time from the hours of 5pm until bedtime when my phone rang. It was my dad. I could hear someone hysterical in the background.

"Son, I'm just calling you to tell you that your Grandaddy didn't make it."

He said some other things about the wreck and the other car and jaws of life and ribs and heart stopping, but I just hung on those last four words "Grandaddy didn't make it." I closed my eyes and could actually see those words burned into the black field behind my eyelids. I marveled at all the euphemisms we use for when the life energy in a person is exhausted and nothing but an empty husk is left. "Passed away," "Dearly departed," "called home."

"Didn't make it."

Suddenly, my Grandaddy wasn't that annoying old man that tried to call me Sunday. He was the man that used to tell me the story of the Three Little Pigs before I went to bed. He was the man that took me camping at Albert's Pike where I met my first TRUE girlfriend (it lasted 1 week.) The man that would let me stay up late and watch rasslin' with him. The man who always smelled like hickory smoke during Thanksgiving. The man that always carried around a milk jug full of the sweetest tasting well water in Arkansas. The man that gave nicknames to all the boys he loved; Scamp, Bearcat, mine was Heavy Metal ("Heavy" for short.) The man that gave me my first shotgun. The man that was there when I killed my first squirrel. The man that taught me how to skin squirrels that had suddenly been "called home."

The man who loved his children and his grandchildren and wouldn't have hesitated to do anything for ANY of them.

We buried him last Friday. It was cold, raining, the graveyard was muddy. I was a pallbearer, one of the only ways I can really think to honor the empty husk that used to be my grandaddy. A former Staff Sergeant in the Air Force, he had an Air Force honor guard; a bugle player who played taps for him and a pair of sharp looking airmen who removed his flag and presented it to his only daughter, my mom. I held together pretty well until then.

Once the ceremony was over, we gathered in clumps and talked about him. Hugged. Even managed a laugh or two;
"Remember that time when we went hunting and we lost Sugar (his dog) and he was hollerin' through the woods 'Sugah. Sugah! That damn dog is deaf. Sugah! Gee-on back hyeah!'" (which is how some folks tell their dogs to "Git on back here!")
"Remember how he used to let out a satisfied "ahhhhhh" after taking a big ol' gulp of sweet tea?"

"As soon as we can." That was always my response when he asked me when I could bring the kids up and visit him. "As soon as we can." People always think they can put off stuff they really ought to do by saying "as soon as we can," and that makes everything peachy. It doesn't.

I could have had one more conversation with him. Could have had one more phone call that began simply "Hey, Heavy!" Looking back, we could have talked about how great Barak Obama is and how he couldn't have waited to vote for him, (which wouldn't have happened in a septillion years) for all I cared. I could have, but I didn't.

I should have answered the phone.