The Things We Carry

      A little over a month ago when I was giving the kids a bath, I saw a flash of my Poppa in Hunter.  Hunter was playing in the tub, moving water from one cup to another.  His thin, new hair, slightly overdue for a cut and was sticking up at the nape of his neck.  It was in that moment that I caught a glimpse of my Poppa.  Seeing Hunter’s hair that way brought a memory of him to the forefront of my mind.  I don’t remember exactly when I saw my Poppa’s hair, lifted up in this way.  It could’ve been one of the times he rode his bike to our house when I was a kid or when I was a teenager and ran into him at the gym.  His thin white hair when wet turned up at the ends the way Hunter’s did.  My loss for my grandfather hit me again, there in the bathroom, as my kids played noisily, unaware of what I had just seen.  I thought about him as a person, about our relationship and about how much he would’ve enjoyed meeting my two little rascals.

I thought about a memorable email he sent me in 2001.  We both had AOL accounts and emailed each other occasionally.  He had always expressed interest in my writing and had he still been around, I know he would’ve read my blog religiously.   He felt that I was going to be a famous writer someday and I believed him.  On occasion, he talked to me about how he also liked writing, as well as reading.  His favorite writer was Sara Paratesky, a mystery author who was Swedish like him and set her books in Chicago, where he had grown up.  I was intrigued by his life.  He came to the United States when he was three from Sweden.  He grew up poor in Chicago during the depression.  He joined the Army and fought in WW II.  He ended up living in Redlands and ran his own construction business.  After he retired he joined the city council and eventually was elected Mayor.  

A young Poppa, I keep this photo on my bookcase.

This sighting of him here in the bath with my kids was the night of the 2012 Presidential election.  I thought about the night my Poppa was elected Mayor.  My family and I went to his campaign headquarters to wait for the polls to come in.  My Poppa was in his suit and tie looking dapper, as usual.  His charismatic presence filled that meeting room in the high rise bank building in downtown Redlands.  It grew late and the results still weren’t in.  It was a school night and my younger sisters were tired and ready to go home.  I didn’t want to go, I wanted to stay until the end, until I knew officially that he had won because I just knew that he would.  My mom took my sisters home and I stayed behind with my dad.  I waited amongst the adults and when it was announced he was the winner, that he would now be the mayor of Redlands, my heart burst with pride.  I was too young to grasp how really proud I should be, of how far he had come in life, but I had always been proud and awed by him.  

  

Having been reminded of the email, I went into my closet to dig it out.  It’s dated one day after my twenty-fourth birthday.  He must’ve emailed me a birthday message and I must’ve responded with something silly about getting old and questioned where my life was going.  Joe and I were in the first year of our relationship and going to San Francisco on our first trip together, in a way my life was just beginning.  I cherished my Poppa’s words then and with time they have come to mean even more.  I’m so grateful I had the foresight to print a copy of the email.  Here it is in all of his Poppa-ized glory, no editing.

“HI TRISH: Your youth is NOT slipping away.  You are a smart, lovely, very young lady with un-limited potential.  I hope your vacation trip up north is a happy one for you and Joe.  IF Joe becomes a part of your life, one day, he will become a part of ours as well.  We love you and want the best for you, you have plenty of time to make good decisions.  The great talent you have is not an “off the shelf” talent, such as an auto mechanic, or a computer technician.  You have to be discovered, and be at the right place at the right time, as I am sure you understand.  I just get nervous when I get ‘vibes’ that you are discouraged.  Soo easy for me to say, however I HAVE been there and to some extent am STILL there. Bottom line I love you and I WILL see you happy and successful.  POPPA”

These words are in a nut shell what he did for me as a grandfather.  He had belief in me and hope for my future.  I hope I can be the kind of grandparent to touch the soul of my grandchildren, the way he did mine.

   

Back to that night in the bathtub, Zoey noticed I was crying.  I told her I was thinking about her Great Poppa and was a little sad.  When Hunter heard my sobs, he looked at me with concern.  I didn’t want to scare them and told them I was okay, just remembering.  They continued to play and I thought about how pieces of our ancestors are passed on through us.  Even though, Zoey and Hunter never had a chance to know their Great Poppa, they carry pieces of him and pieces of so many other ancestors in their genes.  Back when Zoey first started walking, I noticed that she had my grandmother’s feet and ankles.  Her feet are sort of flat and her ankles turn slightly inward.  I think of my grandma and how she walked, several times a day, as I see Zoey walking with feet like hers.  My grandma died only recently, but Zoey will have no memories of her.  In ways seen and unseen, knowing or unknowing in the way our hair lifts up when wet or how our ankles turn in, we carry our ancestors with us.  I carry my grandparents that have moved on in my heart, in my memory and in traits of my own.  As my final living grandparent, my grandma, lies in a hospital bed struggling with the failings of her almost ninety year old body and mind, I think about how eventually she, like the others, will live on through my children, through their children and will always be carried on.