3 Simple Life Lessons Learned from Grandaddy

“I know where you are now,” she whispered as she leaned over my grandfather’s casket.

Mortified, my uncle uttered a sharp reprimand. My mother told him to leave her alone. They flanked each side, holding an arm of my grandmother as they escorted her back to the front pew of Our Lady of Victory Church for the funeral service.

Above, the light shining through the stained-glass image of a white adult Jesus illuminated his expression. He stared down at us with his left alabaster hand over his robed heart as if to say, honor thy mother and father.

Mom and her brother remained muted until the service ended. Uncharacteristic for both — they hated each other. It was a wonder they remained civil until night fell, and alcohol fueled their interconnected rage.

After the service, our family went back to the new house my grandparents bought six months before he died. A big argument ensued between mom and my uncle as usual, except I didn’t know what all the fuss was about. They told me to go upstairs.

I was 12 years old when granddaddy fought his last battle with lung cancer — hemorrhaged one week before I was to join my grandparents for summer vacation. My very first experience of the grim reaper snuffing the life out of someone I loved. I cursed the gods for not gracing me with seven more days.

That day I learned we can’t control the time we’re given with loved ones — the broken record of memories playing over and over in my mind would be all I’d ever have left. I would never get the chance to tell him I loved him again.

By the time I was born, my maternal grandparents were sleeping in separate bedrooms. Both rooms and hearts were equally wide open to me. I never asked why — it wasn’t a child’s business.

I spent every summer in Philadelphia and sometimes the seasonal visit extended into my elementary school year. Grandaddy was my substitute father — not because I didn’t have one, because my dad was too busy living his best life without mom and me.

Grandaddy slept in the back room next to the bathroom down the hallway leading to the staircase. It smelled of cigar smoke and Murray’s hair pomade — the stuff he used to slick his hair down. Folks said he looked like Duke Ellington. He loved music, too.

Every evening at eight, we kneeled with elbows perched on his double bed and prayed before saying good night. Reared a staunch Catholic who could recite the bible, but never went to church.

The grunts of pain and loud thuds from his feet hitting the wall coming from his room later sounded like a heavyweight bout — nightmares on Westminster, the street name of my mom’s childhood home.

Folklore has it — grandaddy was born crossing the waters from Jamaica to the shores of America — his parents had fled after his father killed a white man for raping his mother.

They changed their surname and began a new life in the city of brotherly love — he probably suffered in utero trauma he could never escape when darkness loomed.

Grandmom’s master bedroom was full of light from an entire wall of tri-sectioned bay windows with a seat beneath giving view to the quiet street below. Scented with fresh air and laundered sheets. Much like the two of them, light and dark.

My bedroom, in the middle — my existence a certain in betweenness like quiet shades of gray.

Grandaddy was a hardworking man. Mom, born in 1934, sat on his shoulders while he walked miles in the snow looking for work during the Great Depression. There were times he worked two jobs. He left the house three hours before sunrise, returned home hours before sunset, and retired at dusk like clockwork.

He’d give my grandmother his entire check on Friday night in cash, plus the collected rent at the end of the month from the two other properties he owned in the city. She would give him whatever he needed to begin his weekend.

Neither seemed remorseful about the arrangement. She knew she might not see him again until late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

In between, Grandaddy found time to spend with me on weekends before he would disappear into the sunset. It took years to realize the lessons he taught me and sometimes I still have little epiphanies that tie him to pieces of my being.

He was a bit of a tease. I think he got a kick out of seeing how I reacted — his way of investigating who I was on a soul level, further seeing how he could affect my thinking and behavior. At least that’s my way of making sense of some of his not-so-subtle teachings.

Lesson 1: Recipe for a tough cookie

One sweltering humid day in July, I was playing outside. Grandaddy stood on the porch, watched me five steps below. Beads of sweat on my forehead and ruby flushed cheeks.

I refused to go inside the house. At six years old, playing was my job, — I took it seriously.

“Let’s go to the store and get some ice cream.”

I jumped up and down. “Ok, grandaddy, let’s go.”

I skipped down the street beside him until we stopped at the crosswalk. He took my hand, and we walked across the street to the corner store. I chose a strawberry popsicle. The clerk bagged it up along with some penny candy and we were on our way back home.

“Grandaddy, can I have my popsicle now?”

“Wait until we get home.”

“Why can’t I have it now?”

We were a few feet away from the house when he unwrapped the popsicle. I couldn’t wait for him to hand it to me. Instead, he began licking it. He walked up the steps to the porch and stood looking down at me on the sidewalk. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“Grandaddy, that’s mine. Why are you eating my popsicle?” I continued pestering him.

Crickets.

In horror, I watched my popsicle disappear down to the wooden stick. I stormed up to the top step where he stood, hauled off and kicked him as hard as I could in the shin. He bent over to grab his leg, let out a loud wince.

I bolted through the front door, ran straight to the kitchen where my grandmother stood cooking and twirled her around by her apron’s tie, scared Grandaddy was going to whoop my behind.

He chased after me, but his new limp kept him from catching up. He never laid a hand on me, ever, and he never explained the reason for eating my popsicle.

Bullies come in all sizes — stand up for yourself.

Lesson 2: Ride or Die

After begging grandaddy to take me to the park and teach me to ride my bicycle, he took the last training wheel off. The buildup was merciless. He kept poking, asking if I was ready, telling me he was going to push me fast as I teetered, trying to prove my balance was good enough to ride without baby training wheels.

When we arrived, we stopped at the corner of a long block on the perimeter of the park. Ok, “ready, set, go,” he said. Grandaddy grabbed my bicycle seat, ran alongside, then pushed me as hard as he could and let go.

Whoosh! I went flying down the street screaming at the top of my lungs. At six years old, I knew if I didn’t want to end my day in the hospital — it was best to keep riding. Luckily, the sidewalk didn’t run out.

Look fear straight in the eye — survive or fall

Lesson 3: Aim higher, be patient

Grandaddy smoked. The back of his cigarette packages contained coupons for various prizes. If we saved five thousand coupons worth a dollar each, I could finally get my dream dog, a St. Bernard.

Every day, when he arrived home, I’d ask him if he had more coupons. We were saving them in empty cigar boxes in his room — each box piled on top of another high on a shelf. I watched as he peeled them from the pack with his elegant brown fingers.

Fully invested in the idea if we saved enough, one day my dream would come true — so engrossed in saving, it never occurred to me we might not reach the goal before I lost interest. I never won the dog, but I suspect that was never the point.

Pick what you want out of life, have the patience to save, and then pay for it.

Grandaddy willed all his possessions to me, including a silver dollar coin collection and two real estate properties — the reason my mother and uncle argued the day of his funeral. He named neither of them in his will.

At twelve I guess he thought he had taught me all I needed to know.