Memories of Pap

94 years of love and lessons

My grandfather, Joseph Francis Pecyna, passed away last Thursday evening. Here’s his obituary if you want to read about his (very full and incredibly interesting) life, but I wanted to take this week’s edition and give you my perspective of him.

There are so many things that flood my mind when I think of Pap (that’s what his grandchildren knew him as). I think about his obsession with the stock market. I think about his appreciation of opera. I think about his massive sweet tooth. I think about his favorite sayings - “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” and “The difference between a bad haircut and a good haircut is three days.” I think about how much he loved my grandma (who passed 25 years ago) and how excited he must have been to be reunited with her. I think of so much more.

But as I’ve spent the last six days thinking about and indexing all of memories with Pap, there’s a very specific one that come to mind. In February of 2021, I flew to Pittsburgh to take care of Pap for a week after he got out of the hospital and while my mom was in Milwaukee arranging for him to move there. It was a week of just me and him. Now, at this point, he was 92, well into his journey with dementia, and living alone. I was there to make sure he took his meds, make sure he didn’t trip over his oxygen tube when he got up to pee in the middle of the night, make sure he moved around throughout the day, make sure his PT and OT were able to come and work with him, and make sure he was safe and comfortable until my mom came back.

That week was so simple. It was making him coffee and watching Judge Judy together and telling him about my life in New York even though we’d have that same conversation again an hour later. I asked him to talk about the things that were intact in his brain - his childhood, his time serving in World War II, his children, and of course, his wife. Having that much undivided time and attention with Pap was something I knew I would never get again. It was truly such a blessing and it makes me tear up just typing this.

I would go back and do it all over again if I could. Those nights sleeping on his couch that hadn’t changed since I’ve been alive and those days filled with stories I’ve heard a million times.

Pap was magnetic. We were so lucky to have him for so long, but I know he is rejoicing in the fact that he’s back with “the best thing to ever happen to me” (how he often referred to my grandma) and his two sons. I’m proud to carry his legacy and I know there will never be a day that passes that I don’t think about him.

Write ya next Wednesday!