Bob (my grandpa was a…)

My grandpa, he was a…

blade,

he was a blade,
a green grassed blade that burst forth quietly amidst a forest of chlorophyll and never tried to stand out, but stood up no matter who else was standing.

voice,

he was a quiet voice,
a voice of humor that slinked in; he might be halfway through a reflection before you realized he was telling something worth hearing, and that voice never drowned anyone, ever ever that I heard.

goat,

a mountain goat,
whose love for hiking and walking mountains never fully sunk in for me until he was gone, and I wished I had even more chances to follow his surefooted saunter along trails of snow and rock.

page,

he was a Da Vinci notebook page, who filled the pages of his life with things that didn’t always make sense to those trying to decipher, but were filled with little bits of notes and epigraphs and interactions that went all the way to the margins.

note,

he was a note in a Vienna Boys’ Choir, he’d tape their performances onto VHS and share them with us, they were never that interesting to me, but something mesmerized him about the lives of others, and he could speak of his neighbors’ lives and his neighbors’ relatives’ friends’ lives fluently…but not as vividly about his own.

branch,

he was a branch on an octopus tree, a piece of the continent, a part of the main, a branch of the tree who dutifully, resolutely both stood out and stayed in line; an integral organ of his social ecosystem who doggedly, quietly stayed strong and healthy and supported those around through all weather and seasons.

Jimmy Cricket,

he was a thorn, a bug, a sidekick conscience, a quietly stubborn man who represented the antithesis of a Trumpman; that is to say, he consistently held to principles and people over the convenience of convenient morality and the allure of a popular selective Christianity that rewards the faithful with prosperity and power. In my Grandpa’s absence I find a joy in imagining his quiet presence on the streets, angrily, quietly, but firmly and consistently insistent on demanding dignity and equality be dispensed to all. I thought of him as conservative for so many years; not in a derogatory sense, but in an accepted sense: that’s just what he is, was my thought. The more time went on, the more I realized I was doing what so many do, especially those within spiritual communities: mistaking a person’s lifestyle choices for their actual beliefs. He led a conservative lifestyle in many ways, whatever that means. But as a Christian and a WWII veteran, he was adamantly in support of separation of church and state, as well as possessing a deep distaste for a church in thrall to militarism, nationalism, and displays of might and power. He loathed those. His principles were simple and consistent, and that made him a complicated figure.

bowl of soup,

tomato soup, a comforting, familiar, warm presence that you didn’t always know you needed or felt like, but feels familiar and comforting when you have it. It’s not fancy or ostentatious. It’s waiting for you at 11pm in a medium saucepan after you’ve driven nine hours and after hugging you, he walks you to the kitchen and offers up a warm bowl, and you realize now that you can’t remember a better bowl of tomato soup in your life than those ones he’d have waiting. Is it memory or mythology? I don’t know now, and does it matter now? I don’t know.

photographer,

a street photographer. He had cameras and he knew how to use them. As a photographer now, I wish I had paid more attention to his interest - as a hobbyist - in image capturing and making. As I cull through thousands of our large family’s almost-bottomless photo archives, scanning and sorting and organizing; a process that will continue over decades, I see many of his that are beautiful. Shot in a manner reminiscent of his personality: quiet, away from the subject, but capturing little moments in beautiful ways. Sometimes people, sometimes landscapes or flowers or places. I question sometimes why something captured his interest, and I’ll never know why.

enigma,

he was an enigma, and enigmas are interesting because of their paradoxes. Something is combined in ways that don’t completely make sense, or different elements are combined in seemingly-paradoxical ways. He was a mystery, a paradox, a seemingly-simple human being with simple, solid, fervent beliefs that could have perpetuated dogma and fundamentalism, but somehow radiated love, acceptance, and humility through a prism of humanity that to me, now,

I see as one of the greatest living declarations of a quiet Gospel I have seen:

to treat all others, all life, with dignity, as created in the image of God.

Tears drop now, a decade after his passing. I loved him, I had a good relationship with him, but I can’t say that I was close in the sense he was a confidant or a rock I went to again and again, or…I can’t say I was devastated when he passed away, because we weren’t close-close, and he was tired. I was sad, but happy for the long, strong, good life he had given, and glad I was able to be a part of it.

But his passing has come down on me harder the more time has gone. I see little glimpses of ways in which I’m like him, or I see small ways in which he enriched the world that I missed when he was around, or I recognize now the ways in which he was incredibly strong or different, and the patient and maybe painful strength it must have taken him to be him sometimes. I’m frustrated and angry at him sometimes for not being easier to talk with and get to know; for robbing me and many of the opportunity to know more about what drove him and what demonized him…he was a paradox; he was a human who did something monumental with his life that stands out even more at this point in history: