It was May 22nd, a Tuesday.
I happened to be moving into my lodging for my summer job
when my older sister called me.
My mother called me the day before
informing me that my grandfather suffered a stroke
and had been rushed to the hospital.
I expect the worse and received it as my sister sobbed through the hard news.
I stood in the kitchen of my new apartment practically unmoved,
both physically and figuratively.
Once we finished our short conversation,
I retrieved a shot glass from my belongings,
poured myself a shot of the Southern Comfort I happened to have on hand,
and toasted to the memory of my grandfather - the southern gentleman that he was.
I returned to Newark, NJ the Saturday following,
much earlier than I attended on arriving,
but something compelled me - perhaps the need to support my family.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't regret it;
my grandmother, mother, and sister were perpetually stressed making preparations for the wake, funeral, and arriving extended family members.
I don't like my extended family.
I barely know my extended family.
I don't care enough to get to know these older relatives that I see once a decade
recalling that the last time they saw me I was "this high."
However there are a few members of my extended that I enjoy seeing,
but it's most likely because I see them at least three times in a decade
and have grown to cherish them.
But all of this is best left for a different post.
My grandfather's wake turned out to be fairly emotional.
My mother cried as she expressed her love for her father,
using their trip to and from my graduation as a comparison
to the drives they embarked on when she was younger;
my sister allowed her face to once again become wet
while explaining he was a father figure
in the absence of her own father during her childhood;
even my niece turned away from the microphone
before she could share her seven years of knowing the man.
Tears rolled down my check through the sweat
pouring down my forehead each time,
but it occurred out of sympathy not empathy.
This lack of personal emotion
stems from the little interaction I shared with my grandfather.
The most time I spent one on one with him
was the day we spent installing my mother's new floorboards,
and it was hardly a bounding experience.
It was more of a "let's get work done" moment
that led to a shared since of accomplishment.
Being a handyman was one of his many traits acknowledged during the wake
along with his fathering-nature, firm religious beliefs,
support of others, and business management skills.
But his most referred to quality was his silence.
Perhaps this is why we never grew close.
I myself am a fairly quiet man unless spoken to first;
even then, I'm quick to fall silent again and go about my way.
But if the organist at my church can consider him a father figure,
why can't I feel some emotion over his death?
These past few days I've randomly reminded myself, "He's dead."
That phrase kept repeating itself, growing in regularity once I saw him in the casket.
I kept looking to my grandmother as she sat directly in front of her dead husband
seemingly unmoved but more likely attempting to hold strong for the rest of her family.
She'd been with the man for 55 and a half years.
There were photos of their time together
spanning from their wedding day to my graduation.
Thinking of them apart made me cry most of all.
I think the fact that he died so soon after my graduation is what freaks me out the most.
Here's a timeline of events:
Saturday, May 19 - I graduate and we eat together as a family
Sunday, May 20 - My grandparents and mother ride back up to NJ
Monday, May 21 - He suffers a stroke
Tuesday, May 22 - He dies
It's almost like he wanted to make one last appearance before he died,
as if he wanted me to know he was proud of me
though he didn't say it explicitly while he was down in Baltimore.
I should add that my grandfather was the first man in my family to hug me regularly.
It started when I went away to college;
the first time I returned home, he gave me one of the awkwardest hug of my life.
It was the first time I remember him hugging me - let alone as an adult.
I didn't know how to take it, but I learned to take it as his unspoken love for me.
My sister and cousins can speak about their experiences with my grandfather,
but me being the youngest of my generation in the family,
I never got to partake in grandpa's stern but silent discipline
or being dragged to church every Sunday as a child.
I felt jibbed in a way; I still do.
So what can I do now?
I squandered the possible times I could have spent knowing my grandfather.
I had to learn from the funeral's program that he was born in Alabama, having always thought it was Georgia or Mississippi.
I knew from pictures that he was involved in the service, but the program informed me that is was the Air Force he served with for three and a half years before being honorably discharged, but for what I have no clue.
Though I knew they had been together for 55 and a half years, it was during the funeral that I figured out my grandfather was 19 at the time of the marriage. But now I'll never know how they met or how he knew my grandmother was the one for him.
Now he lies in a tomb of sorts on the sixth row awaiting my grandmother to join him.
I should take this as a sign to spend as much time
with the two grandmothers I still have on this Earth.
My father's mother is dangerously close to her end as it is.
But in all honesty, it's hard for a distant grandson to suddenly change his ways.
As much as I know I should, it's a struggle to even force myself to be in the same space as them - let alone hold an actual conversation.
But at the very least I can try.
My grandfather would have wanted me to.
If I ever want to be half the man he was,
I have to at least start with that.
Word.
