My grandfather passed away sometime in his sleep last night. It wasn't terribly unexpected. He'd been in a nursing home for some time and his mind and health were starting to fail. But who is ever ready for that end?
In his final years he wasn't a happy man. He had lived a life increasingly full of alcohol, lost his son to alcohol and watched my grandmother succumb to dementia (most likely brought on from years of alcohol) before she died a few years ago. He stopped liking people. He was grumpy, angry and crabby all the time. He pushed away many people in his life with the terrible negativity that had grown around him.
He wasn't always like that. In my younger years it was easier to hide the negative effects of alcohol from the grandchildren. In truth, he was one of the reasons why I feel like I had such a happy childhood.
There are so many things I remember about him. He loved to bake and a birthday cake from him was a treat. He and my grandmother made incredible candy at Christmas every year. They had a big house on the edge of a canyon overlooking the Snake River in the tiny town of Burley, ID. Every summer we would go down there for a month or so. I looked forward to the summers for that reason...it felt so magical to go visit them. The sunsets there were incredible. So was the garden, the Russian olive trees, the massive lawn that eventually when we were old enough we had to help them mow. Papa had a riding lawnmower to do most of the lawn but there were hilly parts that we had to help with the push mowers. For years my little brother begged Papa to let him ride on the lawn mower. He thought that was the best thing in the world. In the house they had a wonderful fireplace in the family room downstairs, with a huge hearth that became our stage. We put on countless plays there for relatives every summer. In the basement was his pool table, where I learned to play pool both correctly and incorrectly.
He loved animals and there were always cats and dogs in his life. When I was little it was Penelope, a huge St. Bernard. I've never seen a live one since then...they're such big dogs that I don't think many keep them as pets. He let me name one of the kittens that his cat had one year. I named it Little Paw. They kept the kitty and he used to write me letters and send me pictures of the cat as it got bigger.
I collected stamps with him. Sheets of stamps, first day covers, 14k gold stamps. A few years ago he gave them all to me...it was the one thing I hoped I would be able to keep from him and he knew it. We used to go fishing a lot. I remember one time I sat my ass down on an ant nest of fire ants. I think, despite my pain, I convinced him not to throw me in the lake fully clothed. I never wanted to put the worm on or take fish off the hook (or watch him clean the fish, which he did right after we caught them). He was ok with that. He just liked having us around.
He wrote me letters all the time when I was little. I loved getting his letters. I loved hearing about Burley and the cats and dogs, and all the goodies that he was baking. I loved dreaming about going back to visit them.
As we got older and more jaded, and more aware of the pain that their alcohol abuse had inflicted on my mother and her siblings during their life, much of that lustre wore off. I did keep in touch with him over the years and after my grandmother died and he was sober, living alone with his little dog in the empty house, I tried to call him every week if I could. I'm the only grandchild that even bothered, mostly because had pushed everyone away. We would talk about things he remembered, about World War II, about selling insurance at Prudential (I still have these funny round TUITS that they used to give out as a marketing gimmick), about politics (he loved Hillary, which shocked me, but couldn't stand Obama because he was black, sigh), about things I remembered growing up.
I hope that he's in a place where that self-inflicted pain and loneliness is gone. Where he is full of the memories of good things, and good times with the people that he loved.
I love you Papa.
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In his final years he wasn't a happy man. He had lived a life increasingly full of alcohol, lost his son to alcohol and watched my grandmother succumb to dementia (most likely brought on from years of alcohol) before she died a few years ago. He stopped liking people. He was grumpy, angry and crabby all the time. He pushed away many people in his life with the terrible negativity that had grown around him.
He wasn't always like that. In my younger years it was easier to hide the negative effects of alcohol from the grandchildren. In truth, he was one of the reasons why I feel like I had such a happy childhood.
There are so many things I remember about him. He loved to bake and a birthday cake from him was a treat. He and my grandmother made incredible candy at Christmas every year. They had a big house on the edge of a canyon overlooking the Snake River in the tiny town of Burley, ID. Every summer we would go down there for a month or so. I looked forward to the summers for that reason...it felt so magical to go visit them. The sunsets there were incredible. So was the garden, the Russian olive trees, the massive lawn that eventually when we were old enough we had to help them mow. Papa had a riding lawnmower to do most of the lawn but there were hilly parts that we had to help with the push mowers. For years my little brother begged Papa to let him ride on the lawn mower. He thought that was the best thing in the world. In the house they had a wonderful fireplace in the family room downstairs, with a huge hearth that became our stage. We put on countless plays there for relatives every summer. In the basement was his pool table, where I learned to play pool both correctly and incorrectly.
He loved animals and there were always cats and dogs in his life. When I was little it was Penelope, a huge St. Bernard. I've never seen a live one since then...they're such big dogs that I don't think many keep them as pets. He let me name one of the kittens that his cat had one year. I named it Little Paw. They kept the kitty and he used to write me letters and send me pictures of the cat as it got bigger.
I collected stamps with him. Sheets of stamps, first day covers, 14k gold stamps. A few years ago he gave them all to me...it was the one thing I hoped I would be able to keep from him and he knew it. We used to go fishing a lot. I remember one time I sat my ass down on an ant nest of fire ants. I think, despite my pain, I convinced him not to throw me in the lake fully clothed. I never wanted to put the worm on or take fish off the hook (or watch him clean the fish, which he did right after we caught them). He was ok with that. He just liked having us around.
He wrote me letters all the time when I was little. I loved getting his letters. I loved hearing about Burley and the cats and dogs, and all the goodies that he was baking. I loved dreaming about going back to visit them.
As we got older and more jaded, and more aware of the pain that their alcohol abuse had inflicted on my mother and her siblings during their life, much of that lustre wore off. I did keep in touch with him over the years and after my grandmother died and he was sober, living alone with his little dog in the empty house, I tried to call him every week if I could. I'm the only grandchild that even bothered, mostly because had pushed everyone away. We would talk about things he remembered, about World War II, about selling insurance at Prudential (I still have these funny round TUITS that they used to give out as a marketing gimmick), about politics (he loved Hillary, which shocked me, but couldn't stand Obama because he was black, sigh), about things I remembered growing up.
I hope that he's in a place where that self-inflicted pain and loneliness is gone. Where he is full of the memories of good things, and good times with the people that he loved.
I love you Papa.