$200 in Exchange For More Time and Memories

What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

Before every Outback Steakhouse closed down in my state, it was the restaurant that my family would go to for lunch and dinner. It was the closest, and one of the better, sit down restaurant where it would be roughly a 20 minute drive for both sides of our family to get there.

We used to buy a lot of appetizers before the entrees and then pack in dessert. For 2 people in a HCOL state, $200 is roughly the norm, including tip as well.

The reason Outback was special was because it had been where I used to take my grandpa for his birthdays – I wasn’t making much money, but it was worth spending the little money I was earning – to hang out and talk stories with him.

Good food, good company, what else could anyone ask for?

I hadn’t hung out with my grandparent’s on my Mom’s side often, I usually didn’t feel like going to visit their house because I just preferred to stay home. Although, I used to work the night shift before, so I couldn’t hang out regardless during the week.

Just so happen, my grandpa’s birthday landed on my days off, so I called him to hang out and we met up. He’d try to ask me if we could do lunch whenever I was free, but our days wouldn’t always line up because of our jobs. Gramps wasn’t retired yet, he was pretty young, so the movie productions would call him to work and I had my job to do too.

Anyways, I remember some of the stories he used to tell me:

• His time in the US Army after her graduated high school.
• When he was stationed in Japan and in South Korea during the Propaganda war between North and South Korea, I think. (I remember the propaganda part, that was crazy!)
• He was one of the few American soldiers that was able to compete, and win, in the Korean soldier’s Taekwondo military competitions.
• He used to be the unofficial quartermaster in his unit. Whatever you needed: money, steaks, cigarettes, beer, he was able to get it and provided. He even remembered selling to his CO’s and they wouldn’t bother.

I remember that he shared a few of his regrets. Gramps was a stubborn guy, like it was either his way or the highway kind of stubborn. He wished he made different choices if he had the chance. He told me that he:

• Wished he stayed the full 20 years of active service to have gotten the pension and benefits from the military. He only completed 17 years.
• Instead of joining the movie productions as an equipment driver, he wished he became a Stevedore instead. He mentioned they had great benefits and were part of a good union, but he was young and arrogant then.

My Grandpa seemed vulnerable during those moments. I know that, as he got weaker, no one took him seriously at the house. I would tell my younger cousins that, if Gramps was as young as he was when I came into the picture, they’d be shitting themselves.

They didn’t believe me because the Gramps they grew up with was very different from the Gramps I grew up with.

At family gatherings, I’d help him cook. He’d show me how he did things, be it steak or making shrimp tempura from scratch. I listened when I was there because it seemed no one else was listening. Not even my younger, and his favorite of us, cousins.

We recently had his funeral – he was in and out of the hospitals and we all thought he was getting better – and it didn’t look like he was dead in his casket. He looked like he was sleeping instead.

I waited to see if he was going to sit up and have this as some sick joke because we didn’t visit as often like we said, make us come together in a morbid way. But he didn’t. He didn’t wake up.

Much like my other grandpa who died when I was graduating Elementary school, though he had Alzheimer’s, I’ll eventually forget this grandpa’s stories: I’ll forget how he sounds like, what he smelled like, how he used to play music and sing. I might eventually forget the songs he sang along to too. I know what they are, I had most of them on my first IPhone in high school, but I won’t be able to hear him sing along anymore.

Just like my other grandpa who passed years prior, the only memory I can remember is when he used to hum to himself. Just a tune when his mind was good. I used to copy him intuitively to remember. Even his tune is a broken forgotten melody I struggle to pull to the surface.

Even though I didn’t have the money then, I could have made more money, made more time for him. But I was more worried about my paternal Grandma I lived with because she was much older than my maternal grandpa that I thought we’d have more time.

The last time he was strong was when we celebrated my 28th birthday at the Cheesecake Factory last year. I was working the night shift when he passed away in the hospital this year.

My parents told me the morning after I finished work, and on my day off, that he passed and I asked them why they didn’t call me. They said that they didn’t want to tell me while I was working and that they didn’t want me to remember my gramps’s last moments with his passing.

I could have at least been there, but that time passed and now he’s gone. I don’t think of him much these days, but when I do, I still cry. Like I didn’t grieve enough at his funeral.

I wish I had more time, I wish I didn’t waste what time I had, and I’d trade all the money I have and more if I could have been around more. But I can’t and I’ve learned from my mistakes with my surviving Grandmas. Do more than I did before.

Even though I had spent $200 at Outback to celebrate the few birthdays the two of us went for him, it was worth the memories we have and I miss him.