On your Grandpa...

Hello lovely children, mom here...

About Grandpa.  Again, someone I've never told you about.  Sad, I know-but it hurt me to talk about my family at all, I guess, at least until I got the anger and sadness out.   But I'll try, now, at least a little...

Your Grandpa was handsome!  He had eyes like Anthony Hopkins - and every time I see Mr. Hopkins on the screen I am instantly reminded of Dad.  And he had this great chuckle - I can still hear it, you know?  Funny thing, how I can remember my Dad's laughter, after all this time.  He absolutely loved nature, and would often take my younger brother and I on long walks in the woods, and teach us about plants and trees, and make 'acorn pipes' for us - tiny acorns stabbed with a small stick - simple, but thrilling to us as little people.

Your grandpa was a hard working man.  He was the Foreman and Union Representative at one of the factories in our town. Honestly, , I don't know how they did it, mom and dad.  Worked full time and came home to raise ten children.   Pretty unbelievable, honestly.   I remember Dad coming home from work one night and one of my six brothers was hiding under the table.  Dad said....'get out from under there...(one name)...I mean (another name)...I mean (yet another name)........ohhhhh stay under there!'  He had so many kids he couldn't keep our names straight!  That was pretty funny, for sure.

Your Grandpa loved to tell jokes, and loved to laugh.  He also was a hunter and fisherman.  He would go deer hunting every fall and we would eat venison throughout the winter.  He also hunted ducks.  And caught fish.  He taught your uncles to do all of that, and I think they still do.  We had numerous guns in our house, and thought nothing of it.  Nowadays, I'd be horrified to have a gun in the house - and am horrified to think of a beautiful deer being shot.  Funny, since  I grew up in that environment...

I think I was ten when he had his first heart attack.  He would have been in his late forties, I think.  I remember being outside, and seeing the ambulance drivers bring the bed into the house.  No one had told me what had happened.  I remember being too frightened to go into the house, and I just stood there, in our front yard, not knowing what to do, until the drivers brought dad out on the stretcher and carried him down the sidewalk.  I remember him looking at me and saying 'don't worry, I'll be home soon'.  I remember wrapping myself in the sheets that were hanging on the line, and crying.  Funny thing...no one ever talked to me about that day.  I went into the house and no one thought it might be important to put my mind at ease...or even tell me what had happened.  That's what it was like, living in my family.  A bit crazy....

You know, as I sit here writing, I realize how very few memories I do have of him.  I wish I did have more......I'll 'think harder' to try to find some, and write again about him soon...

Love,

Mom