JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE YOU

My mom’s dad, Grandpa Pensel, bought this throw pillow for Grandma. I was at their house when he randomly came home with it one day. Grandma and I loved it straight away. We thought the poem on it was adorably sweet. 

I love you when you’re laughing,

I love you when you’re sad,

I love you when you’re teasing,

I love you when you’re glad,

I love you when you’re fooling,

I love you when you’re true,

And the reason why

I love you,

Is just because you’re you.

And the black-velvet-painted quality, well, we didn’t realize how dreadful it was. She always kept it on her davenport. I remember lying on the floor watching soap operas at their house and using it to prop my head up. I looked at it so many times, I memorized the poem. 

Grandma kept this pillow until the day she died. It moved with her from her house to the assisted living and then to the nursing home. Afterwards, my mom inherited it and though it didn’t go with anything in our house, she could never quite bring herself to get rid of it. It’s pictured below with her brother, my Uncle Wally, who took it home when we cleaned out my parents’ house. He’d actually come for Grandpa’s radio but he was convinced to take the pillow and the ceramic cat Grandma had painted in her brief ceramic-painting phase. 

My Uncle Wally with the pillow

Wally with the cat Grandma painted

Wally and Dad loading Grandpa's antique radio into his truck

Recently, I’ve been having a new appreciation for my Grandpa Pensel. He was a truly remarkable man. A farmer and self-taught musician, he could play just about anything he heard on the radio. He’d jot down the words on the back of an envelope and then figure out the chords so he could play it on banjo, guitar, or another instrument in his collection. My dearest memories of him are when we sang and played songs together. The music flowed from his soul so effortlessly.

He died suddenly of a heart attack at age 75 when I was a junior in high school.  It was so long ago, I feel like I’m in danger of forgetting what he was really like. But then I tune into my memories and he is there, singing and laughing and loving me still. His love for us was so strong, so unconditional. Despite Grandma’s years of illness and depression, his love for her never wavered and he bought her sweet little gifts like this pillow, which now seems to carry deep significance. 

Grandma and Grandpa on their wedding day

I know that I carry my grandpa and his music with me. He is mine and I am his. “And the reason that I love you,” he sings to me, “is just because you’re you.”