I don’t want to write this post, but I have to. I don’t know how to say what I need to say, but I must say something.
My grandfather passed away on Friday night. And though he was nearly 94 years old and it came as no big surprise, it is still a sad thing to think that I won’t be seeing him again. He had a great smile, an infectious laugh, and the humor to back it up.
In fact, if I had to say just one thing about Grandpa, it was that he had a sense of humor that made me, the always-a-bit-too-serious girl, envious. He was in many ways an extremely private man. He had a difficult childhood; he had experiences in WWII that he could never talk about; his first child was born very handicapped and died when she was just a child; he lost his wife and the mother to his still very young children suddenly and was left to raise my dad and his sisters without her (though I’d be remiss not to mention the major assist he got in this arena from my great-grandmother, his mother-in-law.) There were so many things within this family tree that were a mystery to me, and I think they might remain that way. He just didn’t like to talk about it. You know that expression about still waters running deep: well, when it came to the heavy things in his heart, he was as still a body of water as you can possibly imagine.
Once, shortly before Joe and I started our own family, I was on a mission to find out anything I could about my long-dead grandmother and what, if anything, we might have in common. I can’t really explain why I felt so strongly about it, but I wanted to know about her and their life as young parents. We went to visit him in his duplex, his older sister Betty living just on the other side of the common wall, and bless him…he tried. He brought out a photo album filled with pictures of him as a younger man, and my grandmother, and their small children. He held the book on his lap and, flipping the pages rather quickly for my taste, peppered the air with brief comments: “That’s your grandmother. Roberta. Bobby Jo.” “That’s me on a golf course overseas.” “That’s Celia…our girl that had Cerebral Palsy.” “There’s your dad.” I was hoping for stories, but I realized that this was as much as he could possibly give me, and even this was painful for him. I knew then just how much he loved me, that he was willing to do something so difficult to try to appease my insatiable curiosity.
It made me frustrated, sometimes, that he was so reticent about the things in his life that I felt had to have played a large part of defining who he was. But as I’ve been looking through photos and cards and letters he’s written me over the last couple of days, I now see it so differently. This man was not a product of every tragic thing he’d experienced…he was a man committed to living life focused on the very beauty and joy of it. This is what made him so full of good humor; his eyes with their perma-twinkle, his smile so easy and contagious. He loved the most joyful things this world has to offer.
He loved children (which made it awfully easy to love him growing up).
He loved music. This we shared as though we were soul twins; I loved the very same music he did, and we loved to talk about it. He was one of my most ardent supporters as a musician. When I was about to graduate from college I was also putting on a senior voice recital. He (and my uncle, his chaperone) came to my recital rather than my graduation. And that seemed just perfect to me.
As I said before, he had such enviable humor. In a letter he wrote to me when I graduated from high school, entitled “A Grandfather’s Wish”, he wrote of his hope that I would find two valuable assets in life: Humor and Enthusiasm…two things he has in spades. Here’s what he wrote:
In addition to those two perennials, Health and Happiness, may I wish you the following:
Enthusiasm–a word coming from the Greek meaning “God Within”–No invention was created without it–It warms the hearts of others–Life is never boring
Sense of Humor–Sometime or other you will decide, as we all do, that life isn’t fair–Why did that happen to me?–The answer is learning to cope with adversity–Bouncing back from life’s hard knocks
And man, could he write! He was an extraordinary writer and always supported me in my writing endeavors. If I become half the writer he was, I will consider it a great success. Reading through the old notes yesterday, I was struck by how often he gave me little tips/nudges of encouragement with regard to writing. Almost as often as he wrote of how pleased he was that I continued to make music. I think we both expressed ourselves most completely in art. Because as frustrated as I used to get about the still waters, I see that I am often the same way. I might be feeling a veritable white-capped frenzy inside, but outwardly I am calm, a glassy-smooth surface. In music and writing we could acknowledge some of our inner selves in ways spoken words fell short.
This man lived a long and full life. His family, so full of love and fun, is a living testament to his greatness. I’ll miss you, Grandpa/Grand Pierre/Grand Boompa/Man of many silly and often self-bestowed names. You lived what you believed, and I’ll strive every day for the rest of my life to do the same.
Posted in Mostly Me, Other Ys of Note |
