Yesterday was Memorial Day here in these United States. It’s a time set aside to remember our fallen soldiers, many of whom died to protect our freedoms. For me though, it was a day to wake up with memories of my Grandfather, a career soldier(Army MP) who fought two wars for his country.
My Grandfather was not a perfect man by any stretch. Yet I decided long ago to remember the man I knew and not the man whose imperfections fit the narratives of others. As a boy, I had very few special humans around and he was one of them. I am quite content to remember him that way. It is, I believe, his blood coursing through my veins as well as his spirit that has helped me survive this life thus far.
I woke up later than usual, greeted by the sounds of birds outside an open bedroom window that leaked the early morning sunshine into my space. I love sleeping with the windows open. The Colorado nights are cool, and the waking to the sounds of the nature I love only reminds me that this life, and this day, are perfect. I was born to live, and live I shall.
Gas lines
In that waking moment, I remembered my Grandfather. I don’t remember Memorial Day being anything special to him, at least not outwardly. He rarely talked about his time in the Army, and never about war, save to put certain things into perspective. I can remember, during the Oil Embargo of the late 1970’s, such a moment.
I had asked him about the hassle with lines at the gas pumps. Our nation was rationing gas due to the severe shortage, with days you could buy gas decided by the last number on your vehicle license plate. Needless to say, this created very long lines at the pumps, and a lot of turmoil in our society.
“Tommy (he called me Tommy), I survived the Great Depression and two wars. Waiting in line for gas is nothing. At least we’re not waiting to be fed.”
Ah, perspective. He always taught me perspective and he always seemed to get me thinking. This was no different. In both our time together and in my memory of him he was always there to make a point.
“Quit the whining and put the damned things on.”
After a meditation and a shower, I checked social media. I do that in part because I have friends I care about and because I just can’t stop looking at the train wreck that is my society. One of the first things I saw was another endless debate about masks and about the right not to wear one.
I could hear my Grandfather sigh that heavy sigh of his. It was a sigh often accompanied by a shaking of his head. I could then see him look up over his eyeglasses at me.
“Tommy, being a patriot is not about waving a flag or showing up at a parade. It’s about serving your country. It’s about living an ideal, a system of honor. Wear a mask if it has a chance of protecting someone else. Just quit the whining and put the damned thing on.”
He wasn’t much for whining. He, and most in his generation, just survived. They fought, they worked and they took care of each other. In fact, he once said to my shock and disapproval that neighborhoods should not be integrated.
“What? Why?” I asked with a tinge of disappointment.
“Because, you need to know who you can count on. How I grew up, Germans could count on other Germans. Irishmen could count on other Irishmen. The main reason the military wears a uniform is so we know who we can count on. Look at the Amish. They don’t whine and complain if their barn burns down. They all just get up, get together and rebuild the damned thing.”
He then continued in my memory.
“In fact, you should be so busy doing things that you’re too out of breath to talk, let alone whine.”
I could learn a thing or two from him still.
Time to get moving
In that early morning dialog, I decided to hold my Grandfather special the entire day. I wanted to remember him by living in a way that both utilized and honored his place in my life. I would, as he would have done, do so quietly and without much fanfare. Fanfare was not his thing.
Unfortunately, most of my life my Grandfather was sick. He smoked 3-4 packs of unfiltered Pall Malls a day and had the compulsory emphysema to prove it. He started smoking them when he was a young man in the Army, back when Big Tobacco told the world how healthy it was to smoke.
There was never a time in my memory that my Grandfather did not struggle to breathe. Yet, we did all kinds of things together. He, my Grandmother and I would go fishing off the coast and in the bays of New Jersey quite often. He would teach me all kinds of knots that I would quickly forget. It wasn’t about the knots that excited me. It was about the moments with my Grandfather.
It didn’t take long, though, for the COPD to worsen and his abilities to do things declined to the point where he could only walk a few feet while holding on to something. This was a silent lesson that taught me I would never smoke cigarettes. Ever. It’s a promise I’ve never broken.
There were so many times I wanted to do something with the man. Play baseball (he loved the Yankees). Just go for a walk. I wanted him to take me places and show me things because we both enjoyed doing them. He couldn’t, though, and I knew it so I never asked and never complained. I was just happy to sit at the kitchen table with him and my Grandmother while they did crosswords or played Yahtzee. Sometimes I would play with them and look up things in their crossword dictionary. It was always fun for me.
Even in my Grandfather’s poor state of health he was teaching me something. He was teaching me the value of breath and the value of movement. As I get older I want to move. I want to challenge myself and I don’t want to be in that place my Grandfather was, relegated to playing Yahtzee instead of hiking, doing Crosswords instead of playing with my children.
I forgot that lesson once, and it nearly killed me. I won’t forget it again.
Still, more…
Another lesson my Grandfather taught me in his ill health was the spirit of never quitting. He never asked for help, never complained (to us, but I’m sure my Grandmother knew every ache the man had), and he never stopped doing what he could. It would take him sometimes 30 minutes, but he would walk up a flight of stairs. It might take him a lot longer than it normally would, but he would make his breakfast. He did what he could and sometimes that seemed miraculous.
Doing what you could seemed to be his life’s mission. It’s one I’ve adopted to some measure, although I’m not sure to his level. I’m not trying to get to his level because, after all, that would doing all he could. Not all I could.
Back in the present day, my partner and I decided it was a good day for a hike. On the hour drive to the trail, I thought about the rides I’d have with my Grandfather. He would never go faster than 35 miles per hour, and I could remember my embarrassment as people would honk while yelling vile things at the old man. He didn’t care. I think he understood their vitriol even if he cared less about it.
When we got to the trail, I couldn’t wait to get going. It takes my injured brain time to reorient itself on uneven and steep terrain, but I channel my Grandfather both in his unwillingness to quit and his being fine with taking it slow. Sometimes I need to bear crawl down slopes until my brain feels comfortable in my footing. Once I get going, however, I don’t want to stop. I feel like Forrest Gump once his leg braces fall off. I want to keep going, and going, and going, fully realizing the blessing I have in being able to still do what I want to do.
My desire to keep going isn’t just about be able to still do what I want to do. It’s also about knowing how fragile the string holding this all together is, and that all things must end. While the string is strong I want to swing from it. When it breaks, I don’t want to think I’ve wasted any time it had to offer. That’s a lesson I learned from Grandpop.
The Universe still gives me just enough of a limitation to appreciate the moment when that limitation is overcome. It’s a reminder that drives me, just like it must have driven my Grandfather to keep walking though short of breath and to keep coming home when others said death was imminent. The two of us have places we want to go, things we want to see, and we want to be the only thing that stops us. It’s that part of him that lives in me. That part of us that refuses to die.
It was a great hike, my limitations blending into certain triumphs and those triumphs blossoming into realizations that I am the power behind the life I want to live. I’m not sure how many can fully understand that wisdom.
The Day of Remembrance
We all are different people doing our thing. The ghosts we carry with us will often determine our limitations and our views on the world.
As the day fell into night, my body sore from the hike and my mind swirling in the memories both shared now and kept personal within, I had little to do but smile. I could see in my mind those moments when my Grandmother had reached her limit with my Grandfather’s stubbornness. He was a stubborn man and while she had learned to let him do his things, there would be times when she couldn’t contain herself.
How would one know what that limit had been reached? She’d say three words.
“Now Pop, stop.”
Poetic as they seem, there were not meant to be trivialized. He would invariably stop, knowing full well it took much for her to get there. That would be it. He would do something that finally set her off, she’d say “Now Pop, stop” and give him a look. Nothing more would be said.
He was a man with his way and didn’t suffer fools who tried to interfere. Yet my Grandmother was no fool. She would not interfere unless he asked her to, or when she had had enough of his “foolishness”. I would laugh (and am laughing now in the memory) because my Grandfather would not cower to any man but my Grandmother could shut him down with three words.
Likely, because, she rarely used them. They would spend their life together constantly and never argue. He could watch his shows while she crocheted, or he could read his paper while she hogged the TV. They would sit in the same space, sometimes doing different things together until it was time for them to do their crosswords or play Yahtzee. In their earlier years, it was likely “let’s do our own thing, but do it together. Then we’ll fish, or walk, or whatever.”
They had learned to live separately, together. My Grandfather could be playing solitaire while my Grandmother read the Reader’s Digest or the TV Guide, sitting at the same table, separate but together. Doing “my” thing didn’t mean doing it “without you” unless, of course, it had to.
That’s something that yesterday’s Day of Remembrance showed me. I can’t really remember my Grandfather without remembering my Grandmother. I had moments with him, special moments, that usually meant moments with her. She wasn’t a boisterous woman by any stretch, but she was a powerful woman indeed. They were both forces of nature indeed, quiet in their disposition but loud in their presence.
For each fisherman’s knot he tried to teach me, she was there to make sure he taught me correctly. For each “man’s lesson” he offered me, she was there to remind me that I was a person unto myself. She had quit smoking decades before I was born because, after all, she was the smart one. She had made sure the meals they were cooking together were healthy because she wanted him around as long as he could be. She was the one who reminded him that he had no limitations and that he had something special to walk to, even when walking seemed impossible.
She did so without words, knowing all she had to do was sit there, and he would come.
At the end of the day, I gave that much thought until I fell asleep. I never remember any lectures between them. There were never any arguments behind closed doors I overheard. There were two people, individuals but in it together, and when their barns burned down they didn’t argue about who did what or whose fault it was. They, instead, rolled up their sleeves and raised the barn again.
I was dozing when the thought struck me. I wondered how much they had argued in their youth. I wondered how long it too them to set their boundaries and truly get to know each other. Perhaps war and the prospect of death sped up their process? I don’t know that answer but one thing seemed certain.
The older they grew together the stronger their bond had gotten. I’m certain when the knowledge that their time together was drawing to a close much of what they thought was important became trivial. They focused on what mattered. Living life separately but together until the moments when it was time to play. Doing things they could do, and not caring much about those things they couldn’t.
That made this past Memorial Day a special one for me.