When I was growing up, we were very close to my maternal grandparents. My paternal grandmother died when I was 12 from her fourth stroke. Grandpa remarried within a year, setting up a very strange dynamic on that side of the family. My maternal grandparents were different.

Grandpa R was the scientist. He was a fun guy who had grown up a very strange life. His mother left him in the hospital after giving him the surname of the only man who truly respected her and was most certainly not his father.  Grandpa taught me to love the stars. We would go camping and I would watch the satellites with him. We would watch the steady glow of the solar reflections as they moved across the starry sky. He explained why the light would fade and brighten as the high level cirrus would get in the way. He taught me how to fish and how to look for crayfish. We searched for trilobites together and he taught me how to classify and catalog his fossils. He showed me stamps and introduced me to stamp collecting, a hobby that I never really enjoyed. He also taught me the greatest thing he could, free thought.

Grandpa went to church for Grandma’s sake. They were very active in church, but when it came down to beliefs, Grandpa told me that he didn’t believe the Bible was the word of God. It was the word of man. It was important for man to believe in something. He believed in science and what he could see and feel.  He taught me to look around me and feel the universe and to explore it.

Grandma loved going to church. I think she really believed. Which is fine. She never forced Grandpa to believe.

When I was in high school and college, I worked the summers at the Buffalo Museum of Science. I would head into Buffalo and then go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Cheektowaga after my work. My second job started at 8pm so I had the afternoons to myself. I would settle down with a can of Chef Boy-r-dee Ravioli and some wafer cookies that Grandma bought for me. I would be there from 2-5pm every day I worked at the museum and we would just talk and visit. Sometimes, Grandpa and I would go for walks, but mostly we just talked.

Occasionally, I would go to their evening activity, Bingo, with them. Grandma and Grandpa had Bingo down to an art. They would arrive an hour early to get the parking spot next to the door and park nose out. Then they would get the table closest to the door. Grandma sewed bags that had all of their Bingo stuff including books and magazines to read while they waited for Bingo to start. They had a different church for every night of the week.

Grandma died in 1999, after an attack of Alzheimer’s. Grandpa followed the next year, when we discovered his body was racked with cancer. I was in Cambridge, MA the day he died. We had a sudden shower that afternoon. Then I looked out my office window and saw one of the brightest rainbows I had seen in a long time. I checked the clock, it was 5:05pm. Jay and I went for a walk and I told him about the rainbow. And I said that I think Grandpa is gone. Within a minute of me saying this, Jay’s cell phone rang. It was my dad. Grandpa had died peacefully at 5:05, right after my parents left for dinner that night.

I still miss them both. But I know they are here. In 2001, October, I was working in my office 4 days post IUI. I suddenly felt someone staring at me. There was a shadow in the room. Then I smelled Grandpa’s smell. I knew then that this cycle had worked. I smiled at the shadow and said "Thank you" and the smell and the shadow both faded. We got a positive beta the next week.