After my grandmother died when I was 10 years old, I started getting to know my grandfather more. Over the years, we eventually became close. Prior to that time, it felt like he was more an extension of the love my grandmother showered upon me. He was always around, but never took the 'spotlight' in my life until after her death. I sometimes wonder if I would have had the opportunity to establish such a bond with him if my grandmother had not died when she did.
We moved away from our small hometown of Derry, New Hampshire shortly after my grandmother's death in 1988. Moving to the Great Bridge/Chesapeake, Virginia town was a big transition for everyone in the family, my grandfather being no exception. With his wife and his daughter's family now gone, loneliness was more the norm than the exception.
While he could have easily sank into a depression or been discouraged by the circumstances, he instead utilized the opportunity to connect with our family by starting a new annual tradition. For the next three or four years, he would drive across the miles to our house and live with us. I can't remember how long he would stay, but I do remember every year he always arrived right around the holidays near Thanksgiving time. I credit his living in our house with my growing curiosity to spend time with him, including getting to know his personality and his little idiosyncracies I wouldn't likely have seen much of otherwise.
Grampa loved watching the evening news, as well as the cop drama of the 80's, "TJ Hooker." I remember watching many afternoon episodes with him. He would sit comfortably in our plush pink leather chair in the living room. Frequently, I would ask him a question or comment on something happening in the show, only to look over and see him nodding off into a nap. hehehe. He loved eating the Swanson fried chicken, corn, and mashed potato tv dinners. He also had a thing for the occasional sardines out of a can. They stunk so bad I could smell it on his breath if I got close enough to give him a kiss on the cheek before I went to bed! He would just laugh, as he never failed to see the humor in most situations. He enjoyed photography and equally loved traveling. Sometimes he would let me tag along with him on little excursions, one of which involved us taking the dog with us to check out one of Virginia's great historical sites.
One memory that sticks out most vividly in my mind, however, is the image of him sitting at the desk in my brother's room when we lived in Panama City, Florida. I always knew when Grampa was around when I could hear loud distinct typewriter noises, extending all the way down the hall of the house. I would walk out of my room to see what little writing project he was working on at the moment. No matter what he was writing, whether a letter or a short story, he always looked productive and engrossed in his art.
Glasses slid almost to the bottom of his nose, his fingers rapidly tapping the keys of the typewriter, he was in his creative element. No one could bother him or pull him out of that state of mind if they tried. This simultaneously fascinated and perplexed me at the time. Looking back in hindsight, perhaps my having observed him happily engaging in this pursuit had some influence in my own developing writing endeavors over the years.
I started writing in a journal when I was 15 or 16 years old, though it was never anything I considered interesting material. More like "I have a crush on so and so" or writing about what I did with my friends over the weekend. Having moved alot throughout my childhood and teen years, I picked up the hobby of writing letters or emails to friends as I got got older. Aside from the aforementioned, I didn't write much else for pleasure. I remember writing silly little poems when I was in college, I shamefully must admit. But I wasn't good at it. There were endless papers to churn out in college and graduate school, but I didn't think much of my writing. The way I saw it, I wasn't doing anything different than other students working hard on a paper to get a good grade. This changed, however, when I started writing without it being out of obligation. Just pure enjoyment.
Like the reminiscent image of my grandfather happily engaged at the desk at our house in Florida, I have become the modern reflection of this image. Now it is I sitting at the desk, fingers flying across the keyboard, unaware of all else around me besides the words I create on the screen in front of me.
As I sit now and write with a similar passion for the art form, I smile and think of how my grandfather's memory and art live on within me.
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