
A typical picture of Grandpa and me. His eyes were on me. My eyes were on the score of the Sabres game.
One month ago, my grandfather passed away at the ripe old age of 91. Over these last few weeks, a lot of people have told me, “the world lost a great man.” And they are right. In the schoolyard kickball game of Great Men, Grandpa would be one of the first picked for the team. However, being a “shot glass half full” type gal, I don’t find pining over what I have lost to be particularly uplifting or constructive. So, I’m going to talk about how the world was better, because he was here. Specifically, my world. Because this is my blog, damnit. Yay, for egocentrism.
I attribute part of my sense of humor to Grandpa, because he taught me comic timing. Granted, most of these teachings were completely unintentional. A relative said to me at the funeral brunch, “I could talk your grandfather into doing anything.” This was true. As long as Grandpa was spending time with us, he’d do whatever crazy thing we were into at the time, no matter how ridiculous he looked doing it. My brother developed a passion for golf when he was a teenager. Despite the fact that the only golf Grandpa had ever played involved maneuvering a ball around an obstructive windmill at Jacko’s Miniature Golf course, he took my brother out for nine holes. They made it through the course, eventually. This was no small feat. Especially since Grandpa did all his putting with a nine iron.
Grandpa had a comedy style I could never replicate — unassuming, never mean-spirited, yet bitingly funny. A few years ago, someone had gifted us with a tiny bottle of ice wine for New Year’s Eve. If you are not familiar with ice wine, it is a dessert wine made from frozen grapes. On this half of the globe, it’s made mostly in Ontario and has the defining characteristics of being:
1) very, very, sweet
2) very, very tasty
3) very, very, expensive per ounce, and therefore,
4) sold in very, very, little bottles.
Mom rationed the ice wine among us like Moses with the last pouch of manna in the desert. After an hour or so of revelry, Mom reached to pour everyone another round of the very, very tasty wine, only to find the bottle, which was supposed to be half full, was empty.
It didn’t take long to solve The Case of the Missing Ice Wine. Nancy Drew would have figured it out by Chapter Three by the rumblings of contentment from Grandpa’s end of the table.
“Grandpa!” Mom exclaimed, “Do you know how much that little bottle cost?!”
“Well, honey,” Grandpa said as he set down his glass. “It was worth every penny.”
Even at his funeral, Grandpa’s whimsical humor was front and center. Leading the funeral procession, in fact. My parents made the executive decision to rent a car for the funeral, because their dog Fluffy (she lives up to her name) is a frequent passenger in their cars, and our all-black attire did not need the additional fashion accessory of yellow dog hair. The ONLY car available was a compact Chevrolet. A compact fluorescent green Chevrolet. And this radioactive Snot Mobile led Grandpa’s funeral procession. I don’t think Grandpa would want it any other way.

The House (before Chewbacca closed on it)
Grandpa was the one who encouraged me to pursue my creative endeavors. He was a creative force himself, a remarkable craftsman who could build or fix anything. He assembled a massive doll house for me for Christmas one year. I’m sure he expected I’d be a normal little girl and put actual dolls in the house. But I knew something that most little girls did not — dolls are damn creepy. Action figures, however, were AWESOME. So, in this quaint, three-story residence lived Chewbacca, She-ra, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Spiderman and Papa Smurf were invited over for Christmas (which happened at least once a week in this house). When my brother was put down for his afternoon nap, Voltron and the Transformers would pop over for afternoon tea. I think this was when I realized that a creative discipline was the only type of discipline I would ever co-exist with.
I doubt I’d still be a writer if it wasn’t for Grandpa. Every instance of writer’s block, every period of frustration, each unfinished manuscript, he was the one who always told me to keep going. He taught me more about writing than anyone. I spent many hours of my childhood “writing books” with him. He’d fold a sheet of paper in half and draw a cover for our “book”. Then I would open it up and write a story on the inside that matched the cover he drew. The only rule was that my entire story had to fit on the inside of the “book” with no spilling onto the back cover. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this highly frivolous space limitation taught me the most invaluable lesson a writer could learn — make every word count.
I was reminded of this lesson when I visited on Columbus Day weekend, just days before he passed. I visited him every day at the hospital with my family. On my last day in town, I drove to the hospital, alone. The entire way there, I scrolled through my brain trying to find the right words to say to him. When I entered his room, he was sleeping. Not wanting to wake him, I simply gave him a kiss and said, “Thanks, Grandpa.” When I exited, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. Our last moment was brief, simple, and to the point. Given his lifelong lesson of editing, it was the best way I could have said goodbye.
Several Christmases ago, Grandpa gave me a bottle of Polish liquor. I opened it the night I wrote his eulogy, hoping one shot would give me the clarity I needed to craft it. (Note: Nothing that is 100 proof gives you clarity. Burning throat and frequent typos, yes. Not clarity.) I cracked it open again tonight to write this blog post. This time, however, I’m not looking for clarity. Instead, I’m pointing my glass at the sky and giving a brief, simple, to the point toast to one helluva great man.
Thanks for everything, Grandpa.