having someone beside you while you’re afraid.”
We stayed like that until sunrise.
Before leaving for the hospital, Grandpa gave me an envelope.
“Open it after I go.”
Inside was a photograph of me at five years old, asleep against his shoulder.
On the back he had written:
Emily, if I ever made you feel that I was keeping something from you, I was. I was hiding how fragile I had become because I never wanted you to stop seeing me as Grandpa and start seeing me as a sick old man.
I cried so hard I could barely finish reading.
Grandpa’s surgery lasted several hours.
Dad and I sat in the waiting room holding hands.
Finally, the surgeon appeared.
Everything had gone well.
Weeks later, when Grandpa came home, the first thing he said to me was:
“Before you ask—no, you are absolutely NOT sitting on my lap anymore.”