We laughed so much together, even though I was so very lost and wounded in early sobriety. Again, I was blessed to have lived with him during the final chapter of his life, and I thank God for those evenings together to this very day. It was the lung surgery and radiation that proved to be too much for my grandfather. I just loved him and he loved me … as best as we knew how.
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Holes neither one of us knew how to address, let alone stitch shut. We managed to mend some fence during those drives, but I know holes were left.
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I was blessed to be his driver from Spearfish to Rapid City for 45 chemotherapy treatments. My eventual sobriety he never could or would understand.Ĭancer struck him with a vengeance and he fought it so selflessly and bravely. I know I broke his heart when I fell headlong into drugs and alcohol, and abandoned OUR dream of me becoming an attorney. It was something he talked about for years after. I'll never forget the pride he held in his eyes for me after the final buzzer rang. I do not believe he missed a single game or sporting event of mine from fifth-grade basketball to senior high track, and one of my greatest joys is he watched me play as perfect a basketball game as I was capable of playing in December 1979 when my Custer Wildcats defeated the state's number-one ranked team-the Spearfish Spartans. “How many weeks can we stay, Momma?” I would ask. To run into his arms at Christmastime after making the drive with my mother from Rapid City where she taught school. Oh, to sit again on his lap as he read Louis L'Amour novels to me. Rushing past my eyes and where did all the years go? From the moment of my birth to age 9 he was my father figure, and we had a grandfather and grandson love like no other. Our favorite activity was to stare out the huge picture window in the motel's office, eating Vienna sausages and drinking grape juice and guessing the color of the next car driving past. He owned and operated the Holiday Motel (seen above in an image titled Hanson’s Holiday Motel from Hip Postcards ) atop the Main Street hill that led down into the guts of Spearfish. (I'll be darned if we didn't always find a few.) We would walk the streets of Spearfish together, hand-in-hand, looking for fallen dollar bills. Standing beside him on his Buick's bench seat, I wore a hole in the fabricated leather as we rolled up and down the dirt roads of Lawrence County, looking for bears and hidden cowboy gold. I've never been happier than when I was with him.
He would drive down from Spearfish and pick me up every Friday and my mother and I would spend the weekend there. It's been over 50 years, and I still look for his car when I drive past Wilson Elementary School.