Grandpa

My grandfather was one of the pivotal people who influenced me throughout my childhood.  I was a difficult child to be around and I tried the patience of many, but my grandfather was a patient man.  He went berry picking with me, he took me hiking at the Summit County Metroparks, and he talked to me like I was an adult, not a child.  My grandfather tried to impart his wisdom to me, and if the little I remember is any indication, he was a wise man.  I liked being with grandpa.

We were picking blackberries when I was about 10 years old.  He was talking about something, but I really wasn't paying attention to him.  Instead, after everything he said I would reply "I know."  After an hour or two of face time with grandpa and an endless supply of "I knows," grandpa finally became irritated.  I do not even know what he said but when I replied "I know,"  Grandpa said "You did not know until I just now told you!" After thinking seriously about it for a millisecond, I replied earnestly "I know."  He was exasperated and banned me from saying "I know" anymore.

My family went to Sea World every year.  I didn't like Sea World, it bored me to death.  I asked to spend the day with grandpa instead.  My parents tried to talk me out of it, and so did my grandfather, but I was adamant.  I hated Sea World.  Spending the day with grandpa was not going to be fun, either, but it was better than going to Sea World.  The big plan for the day was to make the 90 minute drive from Petersburg, Ohio to Barberton, Ohio to mow the grass.  I was bored to death, especially while grandpa was mowing the grass, but I still enjoyed my grandpa's company.  I could actually talk to my grandfather about my problems.  I was lamenting the terrible life I had, telling grandpa how unhappy I was.  I don't even remember what earth shaking problem I was telling him about, but he said I had a choice.  That stopped me in my tracks.  A choice, I was a child, what choice did I have?  "You always have a choice, you just may not like the choices you have."  That blew my mind!  But he was right and it was the beginning of empowerment for me.

On the way home, grandpa let me eat some chocolate candy I found in his car.  When he dropped me off at home, I told my mother about the special chocolates grandpa gave me and my mom got so mad!  She started yelling at grandpa, "Why would you let her eat those?"  I didn't get it; what was wrong with the candy?  Grandpa replied "There's nothing wrong with it, it's safe enough for No No to eat."  Apparently, the special chocolates were actually dog treats.  No No was grandpa's poodle.  

One chilly fall day, I was with grandpa when it was time to close up the cottage for the winter.  My grandparents spent most of the summer at the cottage in Petersburg.  They had a boat docked across the street, just a little boat with a motor, but it had to be pulled out of the lake to be stored.   There were lots of things that had to be done to prepare the cottage for winter.  I got to help my grandfather with all of it.  We were just about finished when he told me to gather up the kittens.  A couple of the cats that wandered around the summer cottages had their fall litter a week or so ago.  They cats didn't really belong to anyone, almost everyone had closed up their cottages for the winter.  There were one or two neighbors that lived there year round, but almost everyone was gone for the season.  I didn't know why grandpa asked me to gather up the kittens, but I did as I was told.  He had a special metal bucket he used when he went fishing to keep the fish alive until the day was over.  The bucket was like a strainer, it had drainage holes all around it.  You could submerge it in the water and the fish stayed in the bucket.  When you were ready to go home, you pulled the bucket out of the water.  He took the kittens from me and put the kittens in the bucket.  We started to walk toward the lake.  I asked grandpa why he put the kittens in the bucket.  "I'm going to drown them."

I was horrified.  I couldn't believe my grandfather was about to drown defenseless little kittens!  I yelled at my grandfather "How can you do that, it's cruel!"  This was one of those rare times my grandfather was short with me, he replied "If I don't drown them, they will starve.  There is no one to care for them, no one left here to feed them throughout the winter.  It's going to snow soon, it will be hard enough for their mother to find food.  What is kinder to do, drown them now so they have a quick and humane death, or leave them to freeze and starve to death?  They will not survive the winter."   That was a solemn lesson on the hard facts of country life.   The spring kittens got to live; the fall kittens were drowned.  Sometimes doing what is humane is still cruel.  Life isn't always fair or just.  I didn't talk much to grandpa the rest of the day, but that day taught me an important lesson on the sanctity of life.  

There were few people I felt accepted me just the way I was, and grandpa was one of them.  He was a defining person in my life.  It was the people like my grandpa who helped me survive a childhood that should have destroyed me.  It certainly destroyed all of my brothers.  It is strange, being the only child to survive alcoholic parents.  Two of my three brothers are addicts, the third is a religious fanatic; an addiction of a different kind.  Had it not been for those defining people in my life, I might have had a similar fate.  I often wonder if it was the influences of those people that saved me, or something else.  Maybe all of the pieces had to be there for me to be saved.  At any rate, I am grateful.  

When I was fifteen, my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer.  That was back in the days when not only was it a death sentence, but the treatment was worse than the long painful death.  I remember my grandfather say he had quit smoking twenty years ago and felt fine.  One day he coughed up just a little bit of blood.  Just a little bit, hardly enough to notice, but that was the first day of the last days of his life.  He changed almost immediately into someone I didn't know.  Grandpa became angry and bitter.  The same man who had almost unlimited patience with me was now short and angry with me all of the time.  Even though I was still quite young, I recognized something had happened and the person in front of me was to be given a free pass. I couldn't help but feel I had done something wrong, however.

Grandpa called more frequently.  By this time, I was living with dad, so he called to talk to dad a lot.  One time when I talked to grandpa, he told me he had to drink a gallon of medicated water every day and he couldn't do it.  He was sick and nauseated.  He couldn't drink all that water every day.  He sounded hopeless, frail.  I didn't know what to say.  I didn't know how to make this better.  Grandpa had to be hospitalized and I went to visit him as often as I could.  The hospital was across town, so I either had to walk or take the bus.  What I didn't understand was why my father wasn't going to see him.  I guess going to see his dying father was more than he could bear.  I could barely do it myself.  I felt helpless, and I was losing one of the very few people in my life I trusted.  The last time I talked to grandpa was on the phone.  I answered when he called.  He asked for my father without the usual polite conversation with me first.  I asked him "How are you grandpa?"  He replied, clearly irritated, "I'm dying, how in the hell do you think I am?"  I said nothing as I handed the phone to my dad.  Those were the last words my grandfather spoke to me.

I was numb through the funeral.  I was confused by my grandpa's last months alive.  Dying turned him into a person I didn't know he could be.  Dying turned him into everyone else in my life.  I knew my grandpa didn't mean to speak to me like that, but it still hurt.  I felt like I had done something wrong just in asking him how he was.  I felt so lost.  No one talked to me about death or dying, no one asked me if how I was doing.  But as life does, it went on.  A couple of years passed and I thought of grandpa often.  I could not believe he was dead.  I still felt him with me.  I felt his presence everywhere I went.  The last words he spoke echoed in my heart; they whispered in my ear.  I missed him.  I felt alone.

I have always loved thunderstorms.  They frighten most people, but they have a calming effect on me.  I love to pull up a chair and watch the action.  Thunderstorms seem to convey all is right with the world.  Interesting I find a destructive force comforting.  It is renewing.  Some thunderstorms are so violent they destroy much of what is in its path, yet I find peace with them.  Thunderstorms are raw, powerful.  They right the universe because from the darkness comes the light, from the destruction, rebirth.  It is one thing that is certain, it is a promise.  I can't believe in the sunshine; I never know when the darkness will come.  Sunshine is deceptive.  The darkest moments in my life have happened in the brilliance of the sun.  Thunderstorms are over quickly and they always end the same.  After the storm there is a quiet, it feels as if the earth has just been cleansed.

The energy traveling with the thunderstorms also provide a direct spiritual link, a connection.  It opens up a door for just a few minutes in which I can communicate with spirits, and they can communicate with me.  I can do this anytime, but it takes work and the connection is not very clear.  It's like trying to listen to a radio station when it is picking up more than one signal, you get words and music from both stations.  During a thunderstorm, however, the connection is clear.  Spirits need that high energy in order to connect with the living.    

It was during one of those thunderstorms grandpa returned to see me.  I was sitting out on the second floor porch when he came.  I felt his hand on my shoulder, as if he were standing behind me.  I knew it was him before he spoke. He said only "I'm sorry." I turned around to see him, there was so much I wanted to say!  But he was gone as quickly as he came.  This time, he was really gone.  My heart was lighter, he knew the last words he had spoken hurt me, left me feeling confused.  He had stayed on this earth waiting for the right time, the right words to say to me.  I appreciated his apology, I had been left feeling like I had done something wrong and I didn't know what it was.  With his apology, he was again the man I knew, the man who loved me.  His final words to me had caused him enough torment to stay on earth, delaying his transition back.  There was one problem with his apology.  He finished what he needed to do and he was no longer with me.  I couldn't feel his presence around me anymore.  He had passed.