One Great Man

A friend of mine stated recently on facebook that he went out for lunch with his Grandpa, and that got me really missing mine. I grew up in the the same city as my Grandfather, who always referred to himself as "Grand-dad" but I called him "Grampa". Some of my second cousins called him "Dad-O", which was a nickname I'd never heard before.

My Grampa passed away just about four years ago after a bad car accident. He survived but his back was broken and he spent the next year in a wheelchair. I remember how depressed and how irritated he was. Even though he was 88 years old, he'd kept in amazing shape right up to the accident. He kept good care of his huge yard and garden and little orchard, and he would go for walks every day alone. No one could ever keep up with him, his long legs stretched out on the pavement too quickly.

One day I started writing down little notes on my childhood memories and one of them was about the day I opened my very first bank account. My Grampa took me to Canada Trust when I was ten years old and opened up savings accounts for my brother and me. I didn't really understand what the big deal about bank accounts was except that I could go and get my book stamped and it would tell me how much money I had, which as a ten-year-old sounded pretty cool.

After we opened the account my Grampa sat down with me and said that I'd have to save my money and only spend it on important things and that I couldn't spend it on silly things, like lolipops. That was sad news to me because there was always a bin at the grocery store check-out filled with bunches of lolipops and I always wanted to buy one but I never had the money.

My mother always told me to cherish my grandparents because you never know how long they'll be around. I always thought that was a pretty pessimistic way of looking at life, but she was right. I wish I had sat and talked and learned more about my grandfather before he died. He had so much knowledge and life experience.

When he was in the hospital after the accident I came to visit him on one of his really rough days. He didn't want to see anyone and told my Gramma and my mom to leave him alone and go away. They left the room but I stayed where I was and let the quiet overtake us for a while. I felt so terrible for him. He went from a man completely self-reliant and independent, reduced to a man who needed someone else to feed him and wipe his chin and help him cough.

After a few minutes I opened up my English Literature textbook and read some of the poems I had been assigned for homework. I didn't quite understand what the poems meant, but I asked my Grampa what he thought of them and without hesitation he spilled out an analysis of the poem and brought to light little details I would never have seen.

He was a brilliant man and he did things in his own unique way. Whenever he sat down to type up a letter, he would only use his two index fingers. My Aunt said that he could type incredibly fast using just those fingers, the two of them flying over the keyboard faster than your eyes could keep track.

Grampa even designed his own house with a very open and airy second floor, but that was because he was an architect. Across the back of the house were several door-sized windows and two sliding glass doors leading onto the balcony. Every once in a while in the summer we'd be sitting down to eat and a bee or a wasp would fly in through one of the sliding glass doors. We would hear it buzzing and sometimes it would fly around our heads and everybody would flinch and duck. Or, if it was trying to get outside, it would get stuck bumping up against the window. Grampa would roll up a newspaper or magazine sitting nearby and make his way to the windows and bludgeon the thing to death. It always took more than one swing and if I didn't know any better, I'd say Grampa was a little afraid of the thing.

Grampa was a workoholic, in some ways. He worked as an architect in an office downtown well into his seventies, but when he chose to retire, all he really did was move his office into the main floor living room in his house.

Despite how dedicated Grampa was to his work, he was more dedicated to his family. He and Gramma would drive to the opposite side of town to pick my siblings and I up for church on Sundays from time to time. Everyone in our entire family loved him. Consideration was in all of his actions, and despite the fact that, in women's eyes, most men are thoughtless, he was consistently thoughtful.

But he wasn't all seriousness. There were times when I looked at my Grampa and couldn't help but laugh. He was so expressive, silly and at times very sassy. I was eating lunch with my Grandparents one day and Grampa reached for the butter. Gramma looked at him and said, "You're not supposed to reach across the table!" and Grampa paused for a moment before sticking his hands in the air and mimicking Gramma. That made me laugh.

A few minutes later my Gramma reached for something and my Grampa just couldn't resist. He put his hands on his hips and said, "You're not supposed to reach across the table!" That really made me laugh! Unfortunately I was drinking from a glass of juice at that exact moment and the juice came out my nose. My Gramma just sat there looking indignant, knowing he was right but bitter at being reprimanded, and yet nearly smiling. Deep down I knew she thought it was funny.

I got married just about a year and a half ago and whenever I think of Grampa I feel a little sad because my husband never met him and I think they would have gotten along marvelously. He taught me so much and I never realized it until this past year. Love, acceptance and understanding of family, dedication, hard work, perseverance. He was a venerable old man who had never forgotten to laugh. Life had taught him his place as the patriarch of our family and the bread-winner of his home, but he never forgot the little kid that still lived inside his heart.