My grandpa at age 101
Wednesday my grandpa, James Pace, turned 101-years-old. A birthday celebration for a centenarian is not a typical birthday celebration. Add in the days of COVID and variants and it is a strange event that is more somber than jovial.
My grandpa, is practically deaf, especially when it comes to fast talkers like myself. His health is noticeably weaker each year and sometimes, I can not tell if he remembers me.
He does not have the mental faculties and the hearing to follow a television show anymore but his television is on. The channel though, is a local weather station that flips through radar and current temperatures. If I change the channel to a football game or another station, he just changes it back when the opportunity comes. As a result, every time I see a map of current temperatures it makes me think of my grandpa.
My grandpa has been alive for 19 of the 46 presidents of the United States. Woodrow Wilson was president then and the World War I had just finished when he was born. He was a navigator on a B-24 during World War II and later served in Korea. He knew plenty of people who had their lives cut short because of war. They were denied a chance to turn 101.
When you celebrate a birthday of a child it is easy to process. With a 101-year-old it is difficult to process. Is this the last time I will see him? Am I looking at my grandfather or am I looking at the future of my own mortality? These are questions you do not ask yourself when a child turns six.
Every birthday he has had in the last decade I was worried it would be his last. Yet, he is still there and has avoided COVID.
Ultimately, his age shows perseverance and that it is important to persevere ourselves. It is a lesson worth celebrating.
Nathan is the sports editor for the Greene County Daily World and can be reached at npacegcdw@gmail.com. His Low Budget Sports Show airs weekly on Facebook Live.
- -- Posted by hellomisskitty66 on Wed, Sep 29, 2021, at 10:25 AM
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