I’m in mourning for my Granddad who passed away on Sunday with the funeral on Saturday, so I’m literally at the halfway point. Apparently, this is how I cope. I drink wine, I’m by myself, I watch what I want, I eat what I want, I get emotional when I want. Is it because now I have permission? Everyone understands why I’m sad, but am I really? How can I be sad when the man who passed was 97 years old, and lived the fullest life possible? He was wealthy, in so many ways; he started his own business, he had a wife who loved him beyond the ken of us, he traveled the world, and he was better for it. They were perfect and the exact yin and yang to each other. He was the strong and silent partner of the relationship, she is the social and beautiful butterfly that we all aspire to be. He was my step-grandfather, not even related by blood, but a man that I most beautifully feel that I understand now that I’m older. A kind man, a giving man, a man who asked for nothing in return. A man whose business prowess set him as a pillar of the community, but who in the early morning hours, when all was quiet, would ask his wife, my amazing Mimi, to cuddle with him in bed, loving to hold, and to be held by the one he loved and trusted most. He was never an ostentatious man, preferring to let his wife do all the showcasing while he looked on with a prideful smile.
Though he’s been a part of my life since before I was even born, I can’t say that I knew him as well as his blood relatives. I didn’t know that he served in WW2, or that he even had siblings before I read his obituary. I just always remember him being a solid presence in my life from as far back as I remember. I will always remember how he was in the early 90s when I was a little girl, as the time when he stood out the most to me. I have told my husband, many a time, that I wish that he could have met him back then, when I remember him in his prime to me. He had a very set schedule, which my grandmother adhered to with the devotion of the most loving partner without complaint. He would get up in the morning, dress in a perfectly pressed and starched suit and tie, and go to work at Holiday Cleaners, which was lovingly, his baby, though I don’t know if he ever referred to it as such. I ran around their house all day, many times using his beloved leather recliner as my point of relaxation when I wanted to watch TV, but knowing that when he came home, that recliner and TV were his. He was never demanding about it, but I had learned that this was his chair and his TV until his afternoon nap after lunch. I would immediately take it over again once he want upstairs for his nap before he left to go back to work, but he never seemed to mind that I was there if he found me, knowing that I would give it up to him....especially if I lost track of the time, as kids are so apt to do. I never once felt unwelcome in his home, I never once thought that he didn’t love me, or the family my grandmother brought to him when they joined their lives together. It seemed so natural, though I’m sure from the outside, especially over 35 years ago, that it seemed a bit different.
I loved him in ways that I didn’t fully comprehend until now. We never had much of a hugging relationship, except to say, “hello,” “goodbye,” or “thank you.” But as a person who is not entirely comfortable around children myself, I completely understand him. I never really remember asking him for anything, but I never remember him telling me “no” or denying me any little thing that I did ask of him. Being an only child, I think that he understood my individuality and left me to it. The only thing that I ever did that would be considered a crime against him was that when I found they were going to sell what I called “the Mansion” on South Park, was that I took their leather hardbound copy of 1001 Moby Dick from their library above the den right before they moved. It was such a small thing that I knew that they wouldn’t notice, but I still felt a juvenile guilt over having taken it, knowing that the majority of those books would have been included in the sale of the house. I guess that’s what happens when you have a granddaughter who is a book nerd and always envied that house and it’s library. I don’t know how much my grandparents knew, but that house was the epitome of every young fantasy lover’s dream! It was my own personal castle, and for 12 years I was the the only grandchild, on my Mimi’s side, that was the one to enjoy it. When I die, I want that to be the place with memories that I will always return to.
I’m sad that I will never be able to tell my Granddad now that I understand his train of thought when it comes to children, but knowing how much he loved Nieve (his cat, who he did call his baby boy), and how much of a cat person that I am, I think that we could have understood each better with unspoken thought. He was a loving man, a kindhearted man, and a man that was dedicated to success in all aspects of his life, that will be sorely missed by so many and in so many ways. I only hope that we can be worthy of his admiration in our own ways and for him to be proud of us.
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