I wrote this on my first visit back to CT after my grandfather had passed away. It was a heartbreaking journey for me. I apparently wrote this, I honestly don't remember. I was in that much pain. But I feel like I can let it go now, and put it up there and out there...for him.
Most people think, "Ninety years, of course he passed away. What did you expect?" My response to that is that 90 years is a long time to love someone. It is a rhythm you never forget. You pine for it when it's gone. This is for my grandfather James.
They say you can never go home again. I wonder what that old adage means to my parents, who met when my father was technically a runaway, sleeping in bowling alleys in Berlin, CT. They were sixteen. They eloped and he was drafted. Long story short we landed in Bergenfield, NJ. Long story short, he overcame a tragic childhood and turned out to be one of the most loving, albeit stoic, men you could meet. Long story short he became a professional bowler and my parents are still together. Their love overcame.
This is what I associate Connecticut with. My seeds. Their tragic pasts. Their triumphs. Their ‘love conquers all’ story. My roots. My grandfather and grandmother. My aunties. My cousins.
Driving up the Berlin Turnpike always felt a bit blurry to me, fuzzy; no matter how close I get to my heritage, to my auntie’s, to Frances Street and Rocky Hill, to my grandparents’ home in Newington, to his garden, I always felt like I was going home in a way, despite the unfamiliarities. A paradox of sorts. It felt like home even though I grew up in NJ. I was a young six year-old when we left. So, it’s always this strange sense of nostalgia; one that I never feel quite worthy of. But still, it is innate. And then there's this emotional pang I feel as I count the bridges on the Merritt Parkway. They flash by, like that pang I feel everytime I come up here. It's a pang that is rooted in the feeling that I was never emotionally close enough to this place, to these roots. Not close enough to the depths I wish I had been when my grandfather passed at 90.
I should have counted, "1, 2, 3..." and dove in, and held on, a long time ago. Shit, he was 90. How long did I have to reach those depths? To answer my own question, quite a lot.
Sad thing about these moments where we learn who we are and who we wish we had been, is that they often come too late. My grandfather passed, just shy of his 90th birthday. It was too late for me to be the person I should have been to him.
I mean we were close enough. I savored the time I’d go up north and spend alone with my grandparents, but I wasn’t like my sister, or my Auntie Linda. I didn’t visit every weekend. I didn’t plant his tomatoes when he could no longer physically do it himself. I didn't drop my world for his. I should have been there more. With two young children, and not enough space for all of us to visit, and a job where the bulk of my work is done on the weekends, my visits were few and far between.
I picked up The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and had a flashback the other day. I remember it was circa 2008. It was an emotional fall. Just a few weeks pregnant with A.J. Turmoil at home. I fled to my grandparents house to find the solace only they had the power to restore. I let my fingers trace the edges of the book, as I was overcome with a feeling of warmth. How ironic that despite the hormones and the chaos that was my life at that time, all this book conjures up now is warmth. That solo trip when I was just a few weeks preggers. A blue Ralph Lauren knitted sweater to hide my not quite pregnant looking belly. Some soft throws on their living room couch. That book. Dusk. Gramps succumbed to my cravings and escorted me to Outback for takeout.
He knew it wasn't about the food. He came with me on that ride because it was about the time. The little bit of time we would ever have together.
Despite not really digging that book, I will never let it go. It is, by default, by chance of being there during one of the sweetest and hardest moments of my life with both my grandparents by my side, ...one of my favorite books of all time. I shall read it again.
I would visit every few months; make the 3 hr drive from NJ. I watched him getting older. His hard working hands slowly being taken from him, while his mind remained sharp. In my own MS way, I knew the pain of that feeling. When your mind is going and it is well, but your body simply can’t keep up. His pain was even greater, however, because doctors would tell him there was no point in operating. In other words, “You are too old. You are as good as expired.” I can’t imagine what that must feel like, to have doctors not even bother because you are as good as gone. It’s probably the most extreme, painful form of ageism one can experience.
He was no longer able to tend to his garden. My sister would come up and figure it out as he micromanaged from a few feet away, holding his cane and wearing his USS Scott cap my brother gave him when gramps went to visit him him the navy. My grandfather loved that hat. He was proud of my brother Steve. He wore that hat like a badge of honor. It was one of his prized possessions.
Have you ever seen when Peggy Sue Got Married? When Kathleen Turner’s character is s able to go back in time, and all she wants is to see is her grandparents again. She wants to hide in their home, listen to their soft-spoken words of wisdom and rest beneath their loving gaze, just one more time. They were her cozy safe place. Oh God how I can relate to that crappy movie now. My safe place is gone. My sister, who was extremely close and always there for them, she keeps going back, attempting to find this safe place, but it is simply not there anymore.
My grandfather was first generation Italian. I have a picture of him, the youngest in his father’s arms, as the family stands around in what was probably the first, or only surviving, family picture of all them. They saved up and bought a farm in Rocky Hill, CT. My grandfather was born a farmer, but he grew into so much more. He knew how to do everything. He was a carpenter. An electrician. He built solar powered panels in his Florida home. And although he left school at 13 to work on the farm, like many kids did back then, he could teach himself anything.
Carpenter. Electrician. Farmer. Even as a boy, somewhere around the age of ten he was into politics. He'd run around the town hanging up flyers for whatever political issue was his passion at the time. He was on top of everything, and very passionate about his beliefs, even at 80, and then 90. I’m guessing he never saw himself as an intellectual, but I did, and I wish I had told him that before he passed away. Despite growing up states away, I have such fond memories of my grandfather, he was stern but loving and fun. And even though we weren’t close geographically, it is amazing how much of him I notice in me. When I catch myself in a moment like that, I look up to the sky and say, “Thank you.”
My biggest regret looking back is that I wish I paid closer attention. I was so young. So dramatic. So heartbroken. So incomplete. If I had known half of what I’d know in my 30’s, as a mother and a wife and a teacher and a sister and daughter and a friend, a Christian, a human with Multiple Sclerosis, and fucking granddaughter I would have paid attention to every word, every single word he ever said when he was visiting, or I was visiting. I’d jump up, catch each and every syllable he spoke. I’d jump so high, catch those words as they’d float on by, and hang on for dear life.
I still hear him though. Sometimes in the smaller things, like when I leave the refrigerator door open for a second while I pour a drink. “Shut the fridge doll…your letting the cold air out.” And sometimes the bigger things, when I feel resentments coming on, “She’s doing the best she knows how doll…” The latter is my new mantra for life. Because of him I give people the benefit of the doubt. I choose to believe we are all doing the best we know how.
So he still speaks to me, and subconsciously I was hanging on to some lessons, but I could have tried harder. I didn’t try like I should have. If only that thing ‘youth’ didn’t get in the way.
I came up to watch my grandmother this weekend. I haven’t been up since he passed on April 30th. I didn’t realize the emotional ride I was in for. I would reach my destination, but it was not the same place as when he was alive. It was half a place. Incomplete. My beautiful grandmother looked like half a woman. Her beautiful room in my aunt’s house, no matter how pretty and dressed up, felt empty.
I realized on this trip that we kind of mourn twice when a loved one passes away; once for the person we loved who is now gone, and then for the life that will never be the same, as it moves on. I wasn’t prepared for this second mourning.
I put my grandmother’s glass of water near her bed, turned her bed down like she did for me when I was a little girl. Immediately I had flashbacks of her teaching me the Our Father, and I cried. I got on my hands and knees and prayed over her empty bed. It was a bit hysterical and gurgled, not sure if God caught everything I meant to say. But it's okay. Times like these, he reads my heart.Words just get in the way.
Coming up here this weekend, I realized how I’d never come home, again, never in the same way. I will never sit with him in his back yard, bundled up against the fall chill, watching the fall leaves dance in the wind, and then crash like exhuasted little dancers. I'd never hear his voice. I'd never sit, simply SIT, quietly next to him again. And this family, the family we were when he was here, would never feel quite the same.
My children and my husband did me the honor of visiting his house one last time, so I and we, could give it a proper good bye. My dear cousin James came by to join us. James was also named after my grandfather James, like me. And James and I have always had a strange connection. We end up near each other at the parties. We speak without speaking. We get each other. And he showed up for me, to help me say goodbye. We walked through the old house, one last time, empty and despite the For Sale sign.What happened here cannot be sold.
I stood beside his work bench, remembering all the things he built throughout his life. It took my breath away thinking it ended here. Nothing more to build in this tangible way. But other things, like babies and grandbabies and legacy will grow nevertheless. This helped me regain my breath. We sat in a circle and prayed for the chapter that closed. We prayed for those who were beginning their next chapter in this place. Despite the pain, we understood that the miracle was the time we had together. It was only right to sit and give thanks and praise as we parted. I promised to see him in his great grandchildren and their children as they grow. None of this would be without him.
I’ll see him again, for sure, but I will never see Connecticut again, not like I did then, not like when Connecticut included him. The old adage is true, you can never go home again.
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