Our First (and Last) Real Talk
My grandfather and I didn’t have many conversations of significant substance during his time on this earth. Despite being one of the greatest influences of my adult life, the usual words we traded with one another were meant for fleshing out superficial anecdotes. What happened in school earlier that day. The time that his brother-in-law took him to an Air Force recruitment office after warning him not to sign anything, and walking out of the office enlisted that same day. Why The Man with the Gold Arm was such a groundbreaking film at its release, noting the controversial elements making up the plot. Stories like this structured the bulk of our interactions. And many of them were repeated on a monthly basis, if not more often.
There’s one exception to this rule — one dialogue my grandfather and I shared that was so profound and eye-opening that eight years later, I can still hear the words in his voice, exactly as he said them. It’s like it’s an uncompressed audio file stored away in my brain that autoplays anytime I’m in need of guidance. I don’t know how he managed to do it. I don’t know if he felt his time was drawing to a close so he consciously crammed ten years of wisdom into one hour and a half exchange. But I do know that I’m grateful. In more ways than I could ever hope to express.
I had just turned 21 years old. I was making about $9 an hour working part-time at a Best Buy and had no plans in sight for returning to college to redeem my current status as a loser dropout. And the cherry topping it off, I was desperately struggling to piece together how I would break the news to my grandfather that I was expecting a child.
My own father had been absent from my story for most of its telling, playing a supporting role in my early childhood and only returning to make a handful of guest appearances in Season 13. My mom did an incredible job filling both roles on her own but there were some times when I needed a father figure, and I found that in Grandpa. We’d hang out, watch old movies on Sunday afternoons after exhaustive yard work, eat Burger King while discussing the latest special effects spectaculars we’d want to catch in theaters. We grew really close during my teenage years. So much so that when I went away to college, we actually tried to figure out Skype in its early days when it was so damn difficult to use.
There was this unrelenting thought I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried. I’d let him down. Again. So much of the early potential he saw in me, of what others had seen in me, had been squandered by my own complacency. My grandfather was my hero. And now, I’d be letting him know that this monumental disappointment of a grandson was about to be responsible for another living soul.
I begged my mom to tell him; I had no idea how I could have this conversation with someone who I never once communicated so weightily with. She acquiesced and delivered the information but in a return message, notified me that Grandpa wanted to talk. So I swallowed a colossal lump in my throat and invited the old man to come over.
When Grandpa arrived, he sat down in a chair adjacent to the sofa where I planned to make my last stand. The living room was silent for a moment before Grandpa broke it by remembering the envelope he was carrying. He extended it to me and said, “Happy birthday.”
I thanked him but I didn’t open it. I placed the letter aside and decided that it was now as good a time as any to dive right into the deep end.
“So, I’m having a baby.” I sputtered, bracing myself for whatever awkwardness would come next. But no such moment came. Grandpa was smiling.
“Yeah, your mom told me. How are you feeling?” He asked.
“I’m really nervous.” I admitted, my voice wavering and my eyes watering.
Grandpa began telling me stories in a way I’d never before heard. Unabashed, unfiltered candor detailing events I’d previously learned of from other family members but never dreamt of hearing from the man himself. His marriage and eventual separation from my grandmother, the hardships faced in the raising of his children, hopes he held for himself and how life led to the reevaluation of those goals. Stories that aren’t mine to share with you now, but stories that have nonetheless never left my heart.
What I can share is what I took from that talk: accepting vulnerability from a source I least expected to find it. My grandfather, a man who I viewed as an unflappable rock, the man who chastised a ten year old version of myself for crying when the family cat died, wasn’t sure of anything any more than I was. And yet, he tried to face such uncertainty as the greatest version of himself that he could be. The revelation that my hero was little more than flesh and blood soothed me in an odd, cathartic way. I didn’t need to measure up to a legend. I just needed to try my best. In the end, that’s all any of us can hope to do.
We didn’t end the conversation that day with a hug or one of our extremely rare, extremely quick exchanges of the phrase, I love you. It ended the same way Grandpa often ended our conversations.
“If you need anything, I’m here.”
He died less than two months later, before he had a chance to meet the great-granddaughter named after him. But, that didn’t stop him; he was right. The love and the knowledge he imparted that November afternoon has lived within me ever since. Sometimes, I fail miserably. Sometimes, I barely manage to scrape by. And that’s ok. In this uncertain world, there are no gods among us. Just people, doing what they can.
📝 Read this story later in Journal.
🍎 Wake up every Sunday morning to the week’s most noteworthy stories in Wellness waiting in your inbox. Read the Noteworthy in Wellness newsletter.
