Yeah, this is a rather late post, but the reason for its tardiness will be made clear by the end of it.
This past weekend, my mother, father, and younger younger sister, drove up to Chicago to visit my elder younger sister at college. Why did I stay home? Well, one reason is because I HATE car trips, and the others reasons will be explained soon enough.
So, Friday night involved an extensive amount of waiting. I had to wait until midnight reached the east coast of the United States (which was 11:00 PM my time), so that I could download Pokémon X onto my 3DS. Unfortunately, thousands upon thousands of others had the same idea, and causing my download to take an exasperating 3 hours to download. ><* But finally, finally, finally I got to play Pokémon X and experience the epic newness of the game. Of course with so much newness to experience, I didn't get much sleep that night.
But surely, I could just sleep through the next day at my leisure, right? Wrong! My grandparents arrived with my great aunt to pick me up again at about 10:45 AM that Saturday. Why? So I could attend my great grandfather's 99th birthday celebration! So after a long drive of good conversation, we arrived at our destination. It had been several years since I had seen my great grandfather, so my great aunt warned me it might be a bit shocking to see him in his current state. I tried to mentally prepare myself, but it was difficult to not be even a little shocked at his current state of frailty. He could no longer lift himself from his chair on his own, his face was more sunken in than I remembered, and had only about 10-20% vision left in one eye, while completely blind in the other. The biggest shock though was his deteriorated mental state. Because he could barely see, we had to be very close to him to say who we were, and he would have to try to remember who we were. When it was time for my introduction, I sat close to him, held his hands, and my grandmother explained I was her grandson, and which of her sons was my father. I told him it was good to seem him, and eventually he was able to recall who am I. While it was hard for me to tell, he seemed happy I was there, and mentioned that he remembered when I was a baby. I was pleased my this small fact, even if that was all he could recall of me.
Eventually, more guests showed up, some of which I'd never met before, but at least has heard of. My uncle, aunt, and two young cousins from last weekend (see previous post) also came by. The elder of the two had previously met our great grandfather a few months ago, and developed an immense admiration for him when he had told her of his World War II exploits, and about the medals he had won. Ergo, she was very pleased to see him again.
We ultimately sang happy birthday to him, helped him blow out his candles, and ate desserts. Later, we took pictures, and eventually guests started leaving. My uncle, aunt, and cousins still remained, so I played with my cousins once my great grandfather went off for a nap. They too had to leave eventually, so I hung around with my grandparents, great aunt, great uncle, and my great grandfather's caretaker for awhile. Unfortunately, the party had thrown off my great grandfather's sleep schedule, so he woke up, and was guided to his usual chair. Worse still is he was somewhat delirious from lack of sleep. Thus, my great uncle and my great grandfather's caretaker had to persuade him to go back to bed, which took a very long time due to my great grandfather's delirium and inherent stubbornness. My grandparents, great aunt, and I left soon after.
After arriving home, I ate, waited for my food to settle, and then finally caught some Z's. After waking, I ate, played Pokémon X, surfed the web, and told my parents about the previous day's experience via phone call.
As to why this post is almost a week late, I've been busy played Pokémon X of course! If you have Pokémon X or Pokémon Y, and want to be friends in the game, leave your 3DS Friend Code in the comments, and then I'll provide mine!
Until next time, adieu!
- William Winkeler
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