Doctor's Office, Gift Shop Cookies, and Sweet Memories

My younger son has a doctor's appointment today.  Just a follow-up, nothing big. (thank goodness our entire family is feeling better now!) But after his appointment, I know exactly what I will be doing with my two little boys.

You see, their doctor's office is in the hospital by our house.  The same hospital that has a gift shop that serves our favorite cookies.  The gift shop is on the whole other side of the hospital, but that doesn't matter to us!  We just get off the elevator, and Sam finds the big blue arrows on the carpet--he knows they will lead us straight to the goods!

Obviously kids like cookies.  And it's a nice treat to give them after a hard doctor's office visit (AKA the ones that include shots).  But these little trips to the gift shop hold a lot more meaning for me.  It was at this same hospital where my grandpa Sam was treated on the oncology floor for months and months.  It seems like only yesterday, but it's actually been 9 years now.  My boys weren't around, they don't know the significance of that hospital, but yet they love to walk those halls and find the bright lights of the gift shop and the aroma of chocolate chips.

The funny thing is, long before my grandpa ever got sick, he loved the hospital cafeterias.  Weird, I know.  But he was a strange one!  Whenever we would drive to Iowa City for Hawkeye basketball games, we would see all the cars driving into all the different, yummy restaurant parking lots for a pre-game meal.  But not us....nope, our car would drive straight to the University Hospital parking lot.  We would grab a tray, walk through the cafeteria line, and enjoy ourselves a "gourmet meal" before walking over to Carver-Hawkeye arena. Hilarious, I know!

And so today, as I follow the blue arrows on the carpet with my two little boys, I will be thinking of my grandpa Sam.  Oh, how he would love to be there with us...eating lunch in the cafeteria and following it up with one of his favorite things:  chocolate chip cookies.  It's so heart-warming to see my own Sammie, named after his grandpa, walking (or usually running) along with his chocolate-covered face.  Those two would have been quite the pair, big Sam and little Sam...


...sometimes life doesn't turn out the way we thought it would.  I never thought my kids wouldn't know their Grandpa Sam.  And yet, in a way they do  know him, from all of the stories they've heard and memories I've shared with them.  And sometimes it's the funniest places (like a hospital cafeteria) where we get to share those memories and remind our children of the ones they never got to know.

Today's cookies are for you, Gramps.  We miss you.