When he was an adolescent, a tractor rolled over my grandad. He spent the better part of a year in a body cast and, throughout his very full life, would make many a visit to the surgery that, over time, I suspect, made him the bionic man. In all my memories he walked with cane, sometime two, but never let it slow him down.
Not one to back from a challenge, he choose construction as his trade. It was through that trade that I got to know him.
As a young boy I don’t think grandad knew what to make of his young grand kids. My earliest memories of him were of a smiling, white haired man, definitely loving, yet peering at me with a slightly quizzed expressions. I remember him poking me with his cane. He wasn’t the grandad that hopped on a bicycle to ride to the park (that was my other grandpa).
It wasn’t that grandad wasn’t a people person. Far from it. To this day I think he was the most gregarious person I’ve ever known. But I think young children baffled him a bit.
My junior year of high school I went to work for him (like many an uncle, son-in-law, and my own father). My aunt and uncle hired him as the go to man for building their house. My second day of work he had me on masonry, lifting 40 lbs cement blocks up to other fellas who formed the foundation of separate garage structure. My body screamed in agony for the next three days, but it was bearable because grandad gave me a compliment.
“You did good,” he said.
“I did?”
“Yeah, the mason team wanted to hire you for the summer.”
For grandad, a measure of a man’s worth was in how well he did the job. And how well a man could pick up the skills for a job. For two wonderful summers, I worked beside him as he taught me many a carpenter’s skill.
One day he got it in his mind that we had to cap the chimney of my aunt’s 3 story home. Their roof was peeked, a steep 45 degree angle with the chimney at the end. Grandad first wanted to climb up the ladder and do it with me, but I told him that was a bad idea. He could shout directions from the level ground.
I started up. Once I got to the top of the roof I turned around only to see grandad following, his two canes hanging on his shoulders and the ladder moving with his gate. When he got to the point where the ladder contacted the roof he looked at me and said,
“Give me a hand.”
I did, with a good deal of trepidation because of the incline. As I grabbed his right hand, he slipped, kicking the ladder out from under him.
I threw myself over the peak of the roof and barely managed to grab his left hand before half his body slid of the roof. We hung there for a moment, his legs swaying off the edge of the roof and me holding on for his dear life.
And then he started laughing.
“Uh oh,” he laughed.
“Shit, grandad!” I yelled. “This IS NOT funny.”
Thing was, grandad had upper body strength like horse. He could grab a jackhammer with his wirey frame and tear down concrete walls like they were paper. He often put me to shame when, walking with two canes, he’d lift bales of hay (used for shoring up beach erosion) like they were nothing.
So he did a pull up, using first my arms, then my torso, then my legs to pull him to the apex of the roof. And then it was back to work (with me eventually scrambling down the chimney to grab the fallen ladder).
The one comfort, the one major variation to his younger work days, was that we took 45 minute lunch breaks. It was during that time he’d tell me all kinds of stories from his youth, growing up in the depression, raising a family of 5, working colorful and interesting jobs. Grandad was a storyteller. He liked to talk to people, learn their stories, and intertwine them with his narrative. I would listen for hours, often with grandma chipping in with some details, mesmerized.
For grandad, stories boiled down to a usual assortment of elements. There was the church, the CRC and RCA denominations that formed the bedrock of a solid Christian faith. There was family. There were friends who, almost always, were tied to the church. And there was work. Simple ingredients, but with my grandad’s master touch, regaled me every minute.
I think about those two summers often. A grandson should have that opportunity, to work with his grandad and experience a love and pride in hard work, stories, and blood. Sometimes, today, it seems as though generations are too far, too broadly paced. Families are far and shared moments come fleetingly during a holiday or two. Sure, you might be able to convince your older relatives to join Facebook where you can catch the occasional update on what they’re doing. But it’s not the same as a shared experience.
My grandad died 6 years ago today. I didn’t see him his last month which, according to my dad, was a good thing. He suffered a stroke a month before he died. And he wasn’t all grandad anymore. More like bits and pieces.
Ren and I lived in Houston at the time. The funeral was in Michigan on the second to the last day of school. And, in one of the most regrettable moments of my life, I didn’t make the funeral.
At 32, that’s the do over I want out of this life. I want to yell out my younger self and tell him to get on the damn plane and be with his family. Say a proper goodbye and tell a few of grandad’s crazy stories.
That’s the do over I really want.
I realize that, so far, I’ve been blessed. No great tragedies. A wonderful, loving wife. Two new daughters. A profession I’m passionate about. A church that’s home and friends to pray and fellowship with.
But I have a strong suspicion that, along with providence (or as a part of providence), a good many of those blessings have roots that go back to my grandad.
And I miss him.