Fudge It

One of the best things about coming home, the thing that actually makes it all worthwhile, is watching my children connect with the older generations of family. My children and my 82 year old, blind and wheelchair dependent grandfather love, absolutely love to go to Chuck E. Cheese's together. My kids run back and forth from the games and rides, carrying their hard won tickets for Papa's safe keeping, and refuel with more tokens and the occasional bite or two of shitty pizza. Papa sits and eats plate after plate of salad bar, dishing out tokens, and listening for the squeals of pure glee coming from a magical place he can only hear and smell and feel. It brings a light back into his eyes like nothing else can.

After our Chuck E. Cheese adventure today, we went for ice cream sundaes at the Buffalo. Reilly Kate insisted that she order some spaghetti before her ice cream and who was I to argue. She ate several bites and then asked for her ice cream. Papa said to her, "I haven't seen you eat any of that spaghetti yet!"

To which she replied, without missing a beat, "That's because you are blind, Papa."

I don't think my grandfather has laughed that hard in literally years. He laughed and laughed and laughed. Then he dug into an enormous banana split with double extra hot fudge and ate it down to the very last bite.

And that is why I brave a 15 hour flight with two small children and a cranky husband, a 14 hour time difference, inlaws who make me want to jump off the roof of the Sears Tower, and stay in my parents' cold ass basement for a month. It really is the simple things. Like hot fudge and cross generational connections.