It was great to go up and visit with your Pop-Pop in the hospital this past week, but it’s good to be back home with you and your mother. She surprised me by re-arranging our entire bedroom while I was gone (do you remember all that bumping and clanging?) so it was like coming back home to a comfortable alternate-universe house where the cats don’t have funny goatees that mean they’re evil. That was a great surprise. Your mother also dragged a room-size carpet down from the attic into the yellow room, which brightens the whole thing right up. You seemed pretty happy to have me back, because you were kicking up a storm last night!

Your Grandpa, circa 1968

Pop-Pop is doing much better now that he has a tracheotomy tube instead of being fully intubated, and he’s looking and feeling like himself again. Except for the fact that they shaved his face, which is weird. See, grandpa has had a beard since 1981, when we took a summer vacation and he ‘forgot’ his razor, and his chin has been missing somewhere in the pine forests of New Jersey ever since. For a few days, he closely resembled his brother Rich, who has a moustache and a Californian devil-may-care attitude, but then they shaved that off on Saturday, and the fact that he has no lips make him the spitting image of his brother Neil, the thought of which keeps your Grandmother awake at night. I sat up with him for two nights in the hospital, helping him get through the initial struggle to clear his lungs, and once he got through the first night things got much easier for him. Grandma’s report from this morning says he’s going to start physical therapy soon, which means he’s well on his way. He liked your latest pictures too. I just hope you’re born with lips.