Grampie: April 1, 2020

Remembering my Grandfather "Grampie" on the First of April 2020

From what I’ve been told this was Grampie’s favorite holiday. From my memories of him, I believe it. Although I don’t remember April tomfoolery specifically, I remember pranks, jokes, general eye-twinkling, steal-a-quick-wink antics. False teeth slid in and out over gums. Lit matches “swallowed.” “Friction” stories about rogue wolves and bucks leading wild chases over our own field and woods. Then there were the recollections of infamous incidents. Perhaps the most-oft repeated was the ladder-scare. Taking advantage of evening and well-placed windows, he once (or more than once) climbed a ladder from the backyard to look in the kitchen window above the sink where his daughter was washing dishes. The apparition of a leering head popping up in the dark window was obviously quite alarming. My aunt shrieked and fled the scene. To this day I don’t know how she ever recovered sufficiently to peer through a window at night. 

Apart from these tales of hilarity (and trauma), reigns the good humor, the gentle hands, the grin, the hat, vest, “dungarees” over work boots, and pipe smoke. All contained in those twinkling blue eyes which, all tomfoolery aside, would never pleasure in another’s pain. In all my memories there’s only one that echoes with a voice raised in anger, and that was directed at a dog who’d just killed one of his chickens. Even when merited, like the time we picked all the ripening apples from the wizened little trees beside the house only to smash them in the road, inexplicably amused by this wasteful destruction—even then, he didn’t yell at us or lose his temper. Our residual shame far outweighed the reprimand that lacked sound and fury. For beyond all other delights, savoring sweet treats, growing vegetables, bottle-feeding calves, building furniture and miniature carriages for toy horses, rambling the woods, chugging about on the red Farmall, beyond even puffing on his pipe, he loved his progeny the most.

Four children married and produced their own children, and then some of those grandchildren had children. By his final day, there were 14 grandchildren (plus four spouses) and seven great-grandkids, including the newest, still an infant. As of today, April 2020, there are five more spouses and nine more great-grandchildren, with more to come, no doubt. His legacy continues, with twinkling blue eyes, comedic humor, love of animals, woods, and growing things; skilled hands, sweet tooth-s, gentle compassion, and even pipe-smoking sprinkled through the generations.

Grands and Great-Grands August 2014

This year is the fifth year since he left us, since “his chariot came,” as my mother says. None of us have any doubt that he went Home, to Heaven, to the Paradise with endless woods through which he can roam with his new and perfect body. He is there, reunited with his mother and sisters and ancestors he never knew in life, at utter peace some place beyond the moon. Thus when we cried, when I cried at that one line of text relaying the news for which we’d been waiting all week, we cried for ourselves, for our sorrow at living without him. The world held a little less joy, a little less warmth. We all grieved differently, and some of us shared what we’d miss most, what we best remembered about this unassuming man from an unremarkable small town: this man who was so much to so many.

I remembered the prankster loosening his teeth and swallowing matches. Holding me on his lap during Sunday service. Hiding foil-covered chocolates for our Easter egg-hunt. Driving the tractor while we chanted “Faster! Faster!” When he let me drive in his lap and I mistakenly popped up the front tires; I exclaimed, “I did a wheelie!” so my cousins would be impressed rather than scornful. Holding the hose over a lethal waterslide made of pool-lining draped down a steep hill. 

Splitting and stacking wood with Dad on brisk autumn days, coming in for a mid-morning coffee break. Leaning over a heated box of eggs as we watched chicks hatch. The smell of woodsmoke and pipe smoke mingling as the winter snow kept him puffing in the snug cellar. Tilling and weeding the large vegetable garden at the bottom of the field; laughing as my cousin and I dug up the carrots and crunched them down unwashed (we assured him they tasted better with the dirt.) The Christmas present of a beautifully detailed miniature wagon complete with spoked wheels and functional harness to which I could hitch a toy horse. Him leaning back in his recliner while we combed his scant whitened hair and massaged the bald spot. 

Christmas Eve after Candlelight Service when we gathered in their home warm with crackling fire in the brick fireplace, tree with the wooden train set underneath, table laden with hors d’oevres and snacks with his homemade eggnog in the central place of honor (rum on the side.) His contented “bumbabum” hum which inspired our parody of marching about with spare pipes in hand singing “Bumbabum! Puff-puff!” in high hilarity. Us hiding his pipes in protest of the cancerous cough and Grammie’s worries; shaking our heads as there was always another pipe somewhere. Him filling the riding lawnmower with gas so we could take turns driving it around the house, towing the trailer with cousins. The little rusted folding chair perched at the top of the rock bluff overlooking the field he’d cleared as a boy. The blue lawn chair tucked in the corner behind the house where he puffed overlooking the backyard and barn. 

His surprise when in the first week of March, uncharacteristically early, I won our unspoken race of finding the first of the Mayflowers and presented him with a small bouquet. His sass and twinkle even from his bed when he regaled us with a risqué anecdote from his naval days about a woman’s enticing “chest” tattoos. The next week when I sat alone by his hospital-bedside reading poems aloud, my breath catching every time his did; his breathing was so slow I was sure each depression of his chest was the last.

These are the heirlooms I have now, these memories at which to grin, chuckle, and perhaps cry. Cry as I wish he were here to meet his newest great-grandbabies, to fuss over the dog, to trek the woods for his own Mayflower patches, to be the companion to Grammie, his partner for almost sixty years.   

Love never fails. 

These are the wistful cogitations left to me.

But in a way I make new memories with him still.

For he is there when I ramble down the familiar trails and venture off the path. He’s there when I brush aside the fall debris to scour for Mayflowers. He’s there by the pussywillow bush with its soft gray seedlings. He’s there at the barn door and atop the rocky bluff. He’s there at the pond behind the white-clapboard meetinghouse to which he once held historic keys. He’s there with the bluebirds flashing color through the somber landscape. He’s there in the smell of new earth and the chirping of peepers, for spring was his season.

So every spring, when the ground squelches with thaw, when paths overrun with streams, when the evenings lengthen and the maple buds red, when the first of the Mayflowers open gently pink and softly white under the stifling autumn mulch, I remember him more vividly. I miss him more exquisitely. I don’t know what he’d say to me, mess that I am, medicated and habilitated with no prospects and no progeny, rambling aloud to his stone, but I know he loves me still. His love sets me checking every day, beginning with the birth of March, for those hardy Mayflowers. Among the first blossoms I uncovered this year, patches of stubborn snow yet clinging to the ground, I saved a stalk for him, left it at his stone after my last visit. The fragrance was so sweet I lamented leaving it behind, but I said farewell until we meet again.

 

Mayflowers Spring 2020