Welcome back, the rain is nice. It makes the dark seem more intimate, like it is reaching out to touch you, caress you. I love it, that smell, the feeling of the night closing around me to hold on in a loving embrace. Yourself?
I've got the fire stoked high tonight because for this we need to see clearly, to picture those things clouded by time, our memories of those that have passed. You see someone reminded me today of my grandfather. I thought I might share who he was and what he was like.
He was a veteran of World War Two, lost his twin and the lower half of his right leg in Europe. He wasn't my biological grandfather, but he was the grandfather I knew and grew to love. He was what would once have been called a 'man's man,' there was no negotiation in him, it was his way. No his way or no way, just his way. And he hated little kids. Especially bastard half breed children like myself, born from a stupid step daughter who didn't listen to anything she was supposed to.
There were times he terrified me. I never felt he cared for me as a child, in fact my presence was a necessary evil. My grandmother's only biological daughter's son. In fact both of us shouldn't have existed, my grandma was told she couldn't have children. But he loved her so he put up with us.
His hands were huge, thick powerful fingers, and, despite his age, a frame that seemed to plod its way through the world expecting nothing but resistance. That was alright by him, he'd been dealt enough trouble that there was very little he couldn't handle. Well except maybe a precocious and troublesome grand brat who seemed to do nothing but get underfoot. In fact I was sure there was nothing I could do right. Even once I was old enough to start to play cards with the adults (around 10 or so) and learned the basic strategy to help him play (see once I could join it was girls vs. boys, so grandma and mom against me and grandpa) I still somehow managed to do it wrong.
He smoked, in fact I rarely remember seeing him without a cigarette in his hands. Rarely smiled, only laughed at things I never understood. In short, the man frightened me because I was sure that were I under the wheels of the van he wouldn't hit the brakes. But mom always told me I was wrong, grandpa loved me, he just was a different sort of person and couldn't show it.
As I've written, in high school I started playing football. I do not know how this changed things, but for my grandfather I started to become a man. In grade ten there was an SI cover with one of the top ranked quarterbacks in the NCAA lounging on a pool chair while his offensive linemen in full kit stood menacingly behind him. That year, our quarterback was a top ranked high school prospect in his fourth year of starting, and our offensive lineman (With one exception) were these 6'2"+ behemoths. So we redid the photo, and there is our QB, smiling, flipping up a football, cool and calm, behind him this wall of muscle staring out in scary fashion, with the left guard giving up almost half a foot in height to the tackle and center flanking him. That midget lineman was me. Grade 10 year, there I am this half sized lineman, trying to look all scary and mean. I found the picture ridiculous even then. (Dirty secret: I still have the picture though) They even had us do one without our pads on so you could see all my pudginess, I'm sure it's somewhere in the stock files of the LP.
Some time after the season, we head out to grandma and grandpas for thanksgiving. I've been looking forward to this because EVERYONE is coming, we used to have these big family thanksgivings and Christmases out there, and I loved them. We hadn't for a very long time, so I was stoked. I come around the corner of the door to the dining room and boom, I stop. Right by the mirror/shelf that has hung above the light switch forever is the picture. There I am, in all my football glory, staring out with a mean look. I was stunned. Who put that up? Must've been grandma, so I say to mom 'Hey, did you send grandma a picture?' She goes 'Nope,' smirks at me and walks away. I look to grandma and say 'Did you get the paper that day?' She says 'Nope, grandpa did, for that picture, you know he hates the paper.' (Aside: Grandpa hated pretty much everything, the paper, tv, except the Journal and the National with Noltan Nash, and The Tommy Hunter Show, radio, music, sports, people, and all things in the universe, but he hated them all equally so it was ok) Grandpa looks up from the table, where he is playing solitaire, grunts out 'Y'look good. Play good?' I was stunned, I stammered 'Good enough to start,' and he smiled. I didn't mean it to come out all cocky and self-important, but he liked that apparently.
I never knew grandpa to compromise, to negotiate, or to change his mind. In fact I was pretty sure that he couldn't do that. But here he was, proud of me in some way. In fact, other pictures of me started showing up in the house, and then when they moved to Stockholm, the house there was covered in pictures of me and mom, and front and center was that silly newspaper picture of a young kid who didn't have a clue how to look mean.
That summer they moved, I started helping grandpa with the yard work around the new place. You see he was on a ventilator and wasn't as mobile. The smoking was catching up to him, but that didn't matter. As he said once when my grandmother suggested he quit 'I'll smoke till my last breath, not that it's your concern.' So I did the mowing (riding lawnmowers are fun folks!) and cleaning up, chopping wood, cut down a couple bushes and trees that needed to go, and helped out as much as I could. My mom had also started dating someone out in Esterhazy (Pops!) so we went out A LOT. About a month into this every weekend trip, grandpa calls me out to the back shed, and says 'In there, s'yours, can't use it.' An old Briggs and Stratton single cylinder gas powered lawnmower. Beat all to hell. But boy I can honestly say there are few gifts I've gotten that made me happier. 'Y'mom said you rebuilt one of those in one of yer classes. Rebuild it here, and its yours.' I tore that thing down and put it together in record time, all cleaned, re-oilled, and ready to go. It fired up on the first pull, and boy did she purr. Those B&S motors are incredible.
Grandpa died shortly after that. And he did, he smoked right to his last breath, at least that's what grandma says. Knowing grandpa I can't doubt it. He never ever changed his mind. He just couldn't always show what he thought. When his mind was set to something, that was what would happen, and I doubt there was anything out there that would stop him, or could. Grandpa was a force of nature himself. He was determination, stubborn pride, and irascibility all exemplified. Reality was what he made it, and damn the rest.
I miss him. I know he's there though, because when I come to those trying times that make me doubt myself, my own abilities, and see the obstacles as insurmountable, I just think of him. It becomes a little prayer: 'Granpa, gotta get this done. Y'mind watching me for a bit? We can do this.' I repeat that last line over and over. We can do this. I can feel those big thick fingers pushing me forward, that bullheaded need to make reality my bitch comes out and things get done.
Why is it we though? I believe it's part mystical, but it's mostly social. You see role models are more than just something to exemplify. They are us and we them. In turns, we take the world around us into and back out of our own thought matrix, and reproduce those things that help us succeed. We need this. We crave this. For every 'self made' person out there, I scoff. Self made is a delusion, a lie we tell ourselves so we can selfishly hoard what we've received.
Me, I'll give thanks where it's due. Every deadline and assignment that I felt was beyond me, for every time I got knocked down so hard I just didn't want to get back up, for every moment I was overwhelmed by the world around me, and despite those things I got it done the way I needed to get it done is thanks to Grandpa, that elemental figure that taught me what was real and why that's not necessarily reality.
Thank you Grandpa, from my heart, from my soul. I miss you.
