Yesterday, I cried.
As middle-age moves into both my emaciated muscles and
meandering metabolism, I have made a sincerely insincere effort to be
negligibly more mobile. With my ubiquitous FitBit affixed firmly to my six-inch
wrist; I left New Stately Bootleg Manor around 8:00PM in an attempt to walk off
the second-rate takeout burrito that had overstayed its welcome in the attic of
my abdomen.
Our new neighborhood is a collection of cul-de-sacs sewn
together with two or three actual streets built atop an assortment of natural
inclines and their geological antonyms. With a light rain falling, the
intermittently-placed streetlights were more useless than usual, so I headed
south and then west with the seasonal residential compass – garishly-lit
holiday yard decorations – as my substitute North Star.
Over the past few years, the holidays have become a
case-study in Hebbian Plasticity for
my psyche. As I unsteadily shuffled across the saturated sidewalks, random
thoughts pinballed around my brain. Inevitably, memories of my late grandfather
found their way in. He passed away earlier this year after a short (or long)
illness at the age of 90.
Funnily enough, the first thing I usually think of
before the flood of more meaningful memories from my
grandfather is that he died on May 11. This lightly-read blog has gotten a
bit of mileage from "the events of 5/11" and the mocking of my own mortality. So, of
course, he passes away with dignity and grace while I faced my more immediate
health scare with flailing limbs and flop sweat. Figures.
"Dignity" and "grace" are admittedly
hackneyed callouts that could appear on anyone's epitaph – earned or otherwise.
And, to be fair, clichés don't do John Cameron justice.
Like you and me, my grandfather was flawed. My earliest
-- earliest -- memories of him were taking walks around his
Long Beach neighborhood with my brother. Just the three of us. Periodically, my
grandfather would reach into an ostensibly random shrub, pull out a flask and
take a quick swig. Decades later, I smile at the imagery – equal parts shameless
and stealthy. But, those romanticized sips were symptoms of a more insidious
issue and in the spring of 1986 – when I was 13 – my grandfather's alcoholism
(nearly) killed him.
The parenthetical actually serves a purpose. My
grandfather was supposed to die. My mother picked up my
brother and I from school several weeks after my grandfather – her father –
collapsed and was found non-responsive. She told us through tears and an
absence of sugarcoating that the doctors said he was going to die. There was
nothing more they could do…so, my grandfather beat the reaper? I guess? I don't
have much faith in the metaphysical, but I wasn't about to look a gift miracle
in the mouth.
My grandfather made the most of his resurrection. He
kicked the bottle – and the flask – cold turkey. His daily libation strolls
evolved into actual exercise as my grandfather accumulated miles and miles of
walking to his biometric resume. At the time, I didn't appreciate this unscripted
second act as much as I do today. Save for a cane he now needed to steady his
gait, my grandfather was BACK and better than EVER! (See? Hackneyed.)
In 1995, I was a starving college student who'd just
moved in to a studio apartment about three blocks from my grandparents. I made
$8.00/hour serving ice cream and frozen yogurt to the beautiful people on the
beach. After rent, utilities, textbooks and a steady payout for car
maintenance, I had just enough "walking-around
money" left over to subsist off of whatever broken waffle cones I could
embezzle out through the back door.
Not long after moving in, my grandfather called and
invited me over for dinner. Every Monday night thereafter, my grandparents
would cook an obnoxious amount of food – one night there were six Cornish game
hens stuffed with macaroni and cheese…another time, in a stockpot as tall as
the still-diminutive Mrs. Bootleg; there was enough corned beef and cabbage to
feed 80 Irelands.
And every Monday night; my grandparents would fix two
tiny plates for themselves, one king-sized feast for me and then send me home
with all the leftovers. (On Tuesday morning, while I was in class, my
grandfather would leave me a voice mail with meticulous
reheating instructions, since I didn't have a microwave.)
My grandparents continued to feed me even after I moved
to San Diego and transferred to SDSU. When I'd come back to Long Beach for
visits, my grandfather always insisted on walking me to my car – all the way to
my car—when it was time for me to leave. He'd then give me a big hug, followed
by a firm handshake and his hilariously awkward palming of money into my hand.
My grandparents were seniors on a fixed income and he didn't want my
grandmother to know just how much he was subsidizing the contents of my
stomach. (At least, that was the explanation I received from, yup, my
grandmother.)
Speaking of my grandmother – and I've written about Hurricane Hazel before – she passed
away in December 2001, not long after celebrating their 50th wedding
anniversary and less than a year before I jumped the broom with Mrs. Bootleg.
It hurt my heart to see my grandfather standing by himself at our wedding, but
I remember being buoyed that evening by both my wife's resplendency and my
grandfather's resiliency. His strength was the foundation for his unrehearsed
third act. A widower without his rock, my grandfather would now give his love
right back to those who loved him.
And, THAT'S why I cried yesterday. I cried because of the
life – hell, the lives -- he lived. I cried because we got 30
more years with him than his body should've given us.
The first Thanksgiving and Christmas without him were
harder than I thought. But, I can still laugh at the memory of
last Thanksgiving. As dinner was about to be served, I
stepped up to carve the bird. My grandfather wasn't having it. "You're not
ready", he said. "I've carved plenty of meats", I protested
meekly. "You're not ready", he repeated. "Go in the living room
and watch TV with Jalen." Banished to the kid's section…by the man of the
house.
I'm really not sure how long my grandfather was ill, but
I remember that he looked demonstrably weaker that day. And, through an odd
twist of fate mixed with indelicate timing, I was the only relative in the room
when the doctor came in and told my grandfather about the extent of the cancer
that was invading his prostate and metastasizing in his bones. That shit don't
sneak up on you. But, my grandfather never talked about his pain. He wouldn't
want us to worry. He went out the way he wanted.
And, that's SOME comfort, I suppose.
But, my GOD, I miss him.
Several times throughout the year, I'd drive up to visit
him and we'd sit for hours catching up on life and talking current events or
sports or politics. My grandfather was spectacularly pragmatic, but what I
wouldn't give to hear his thoughts on the America that so gleefully elected a
man who refused to rent his properties to African-Americans and who yearns to
see five innocent men of color jailed for a crime they
didn't commit when they weren't much older than his
12-year-old great-grandson, Jalen.
But, like I said, my grandfather never talked about his
pain. He proudly served his country, but endured some unspeakable indignities
at the hands of his fellow servicemen. His so-called countrymen. The
"greatest generation", indeed.
He married a white woman and raised two interracial girls
in an America that wasn't quite ready for any of it. Of course, on my
penultimate hospital visit with him, he became a one-man Black History Month
monologue and talked openly about the time he marched for voting rights in 1949
Mississippi and was shot at for his troubles. Marching for voting rights? Woo,
lord, we need him now more than
ever.
When I was six-years-old, my grandfather picked my
brother and I up from school. I remember it was a very hot day and he brought
us cans of 7-Up for the ride home. I finished mine in a millisecond, so my
grandfather stopped at the liquor store (heh) and bought me another one. From
that day on, up until the last time I visited him in his apartment, he'd always
greet me the same way: "Hey, chief! How's it going? There's 7-Up in the
refrigerator." I'd long since outgrown the cloying sweetness of soft
drinks, but I always accepted his carbonated offering and s-l-o-w-l-y sipped
that ice cold can of liquid diabetes.
On the day that my grandfather died, Jalen and I shared a
7-Up in the parking lot of a 7-11 when we returned home to San Diego. I'm
planning to have another one tonight around midnight.
Yesterday, I cried.
Tomorrow, I'll smile.
