Grandpa doesn't sleep.

That was what my mother told me one day while picking me up from Grandma and Grandpa's house.

I often spent my summer nights there, as I happened to live in the same town as my

grandparents and luxury many other kids didn't have. During the day it was everything

a kid could hope for. We baked cookies, ate ice cream, visited playgrounds.

But at night, whenever I left the spare bedroom to get a drink of water or take a leak,

I could often glimpse Grandpa in the living room, awake in his reclining chair with a light on beside him,

spaced out while watching static flick around the TV.

It occurred to me that I'd never seen him go to bed.

After one too many 3 a.m. trips to the toilet, I finally asked my mother why Grandpa stayed awake in his chair all night.

All she said was, Grandpa just doesn't sleep.

You'll understand when you're older.

By the time I was old enough to understand that my Grandpa suffered from acute and chronic insomnia,

I'd stop spending as much time with him.

Instead, I was 16, a junior in high school, and way out of Felicity Alderson's League.

The only time I saw my grandparents were at holidays and funerals.

It might sound cool that I had allowed us to drift apart, that I had in in in inversely cut them out of my life when we lived so close and distance.

But at a certain point, you become too old for playgrounds and cartoons every weekend.

Besides, my grandparents were getting old and they had better things to do than look after me.

Things changed when I woke up to a phone call at 2 in the morning.

My heart skipped a beat when I recognized my grandma's number, knowing intuitively that

late night calls are never a good thing.

...