What's up, Doc?

Every boy needs his grandfather.

Tonight, he is in my mind, although half a country is between us.
I wonder what he is doing. I know that he is probably still awake. Some leg pain, or back ache from various injuries and nerve disorders have him wondering the one hallway in his house. He thinks of his wife, sleeping in the blue bedroom beside the unused Nautilus. He wonders if I am awake, if I am in pain.

He stops to think of his other grandsons. Criminals from broken homes, fathers without wives. He thinks of how they have wrecked his cars, snorted and injected, whored with who knows who, and worst yet, rejected to be helped by his love.

And then he remembers me. This is how it should be. His other boys need his love to be proven and offered, for it is one of the few hopes of which they can boast.

His love for me? Lost, sometimes, in a world of love that surrounds me. The grandson from a happy marriage. The grandson with only a record of measurable success and happiness.
The grandson that he needn't worry about in the cold of a night like this.