Grandpa Says Goodbye

A young woman had recently lost her father. He had passed from natural causes after living a good and Godly life. Her mother was still alive and she had several siblings around her as well.

Out of all her family, she had always been closest with her Dad. They did a lot together as often as time would allow and her daughter grew exceedingly close to him as well. It was her Paw-Paw.

Paw-Paw would pick-up her daughter every Saturday morning and bring her to the local park along with their little poodle. They would spend hours on the swings talking about God and the Angels. Her daughter would always mention the Angels in her prayers at night as she loved them dearly and believed in them so much like Paw-Paw did.

The day her father died was just two days before his 83^rd birthday. Every year, she would make him a beautiful cake and buy him a box of cigars from the local tobacco shop. He loved those cigars and she now, so much, missed the smell of them on their back patio.

This year, she had forgotten to bake the cake. Her work was very busy and she barely had time to stop by the tobacco shop to pick-up his cigars. This year, she regretted so badly not making his cake. If only she had done so, perhaps he would have stayed a little longer just to have his birthday treat. Thinking about it, brought tears to her eyes.

After Paw-Paw died, his little granddaughter had become quite withdrawn. After all, she missed him dearly and also greatly missed their weekend trips to the park. These days, it was hard for her to even muster-up a smile.

One evening, she had put her daughter to bed and plopped-down on the sofa to catch-up on some much-needed rest. After a few short minutes, she had fallen fast asleep.

It had been raining outside and, at some point in the night, the house lost power. She had been sleeping for about 2-3 hours when, suddenly, their little poodle began barking and running back and forth across the house. She became nervous that they might have an intruder and stumbled her way into the kitchen to grab a flashlight.

She made her way to her daughter’s bedroom and found her standing on her bed and waving out the window into the night. Her face was gleaming with joy and her eyes lit-up the room. She was smiling again, which made her mommy smile along with tears.

“What are you doing up so late and who are you waving to out your window?” she asked her daughter. “Paw-Paw was outside and he came to say goodnight and that he loved me!” was her daughter’s response.

Of course, this had to have been a dream but, nonetheless, it was good to see her smiling again. She laid her daughter back down, tucked her in and turned to leave the room.

“Wait mommy, there’s more… Paw-Paw said he loved you too and not to worry about the cake. He was getting too fat anyway and really didn’t need it… and he said, ‘ask mommy for one more. She’ll understand.’ Do you understand mommy?”

Now, mommy was crying. Not tears of sadness, but tears of joy as she understood what Paw-Paw was saying. “Yes, honey. I understand.” She gave her daughter a big squishy hug, warm kiss on the forehead and headed out to her patio.

Once outside, she opened the box of cigars from the tobacco shop and pulled two from the package. She placed one at the chair beside her and lit another for herself.

Now, in content, she took-in the aroma and pictured her Dad across from her. She let out a big sigh and said, “I understand dad. Thank you for visiting and putting a smile back on our little girl’s face, and, I love you too, so much!”

The Angels had truly been good to them this night in bringing peace and understanding to two troubled hearts.