To Feel How an Ice Cream Felt

My last grandparent died today. It's a strange feeling, not having any grandparents, but I didn't really have this one for a long time. He was what you might call "estranged." That sounds a little more exotic than it was. It was just that he didn't really have any sort of relationship with his son, my awesome Dad, so there was no reason to bring over a Hillshire Farms sausage basket on x-mas. As evidence of the lack of said relationship I would offer up that my Grandparents wrote maybe one letter to my Dad during his two tours of Vietnam as a paratrooper. Or that they encouraged him to drop out of high school the same year that one of their friends offered to pay $100 for two of Dad's art class paintings at a Back to School Night.

Maybe that's not a lack of a relationship. That's a lack of something deeper than that. Like a Dad.

My Dad, on the other hand, is supportive, loving and inspiring. He broke the cycle of crazy for sure. How did he do that?

So as Morales says in Chorus Line "I dug right down to the bottom of my soul, to feel how an ice cream felt..."