After tossing my alarming amount of laundry and backpack into the trunk of my grandparents Chevy, my Grandma offered me the front seat where there was actually leg room thanks to the classic bench seat that my Grandpa had pushed back as far as possible. I settled in, secured my seat belt and was ready for the 2 1/2 hour ride home for fall break. It was mid-October and I hadn't been home since I left in early August. But the drive seemed to pass in an instant as my Grandpa and I settled into an easy conversation where I talked about my job at the newspaper and the stories I'd covered, my midterms, my classes, and eventually where we settled in to debate politics and current events. It was familiar and these types of rides, with their conversation and debate were by far my favorite memories of Grandpa.
It was funny a few days later to hear my Grandma retell the story where she sat quietly in the back of the car, watching cornfields, listening to us talk and not saying a word, because oddly neither of us noticed, because these conversations were ours. And yet, while one of the things that I miss most about my Grandpa, the man that was the closest thing to a dad I will ever have, is those talks and debates, the lesson that endures from him is that in the end your words can and will be nothing if you don't live and embrace the life those words reflect.
I never once remember my Grandpa telling me that he loved me, yet he showed it in so many ways that it was never in doubt. Standing by his bedside in the hospital on the scariest night of my life thus far in March 1996, tears streaming down my cheeks, I choked out the words "I Love You," just before the nurses made us leave the room to preform some procedures and he looked at me and just said "Thank You." I think he knew that even then, facing what would be the start of the end of his life, that he'd shown me time and again, even through our many arguments that he didn't need to say that for me to know, but he appreciated hearing it from me.
So, what I did know was that if you looked back at how my Grandpa lived, he loved and cared for his family and those close to him fiercely. I would jokingly refer to our home as the "halfway house, no stray relatives left behind." In that small, old, modest three bedroom, one bath home, so many family members had slept for varying amounts of time. At it's most crowded, my mom and her two sisters shared one room, my grandparents another and the third, very small room was shared by my grandpa's brother and his nephew. At various other times brothers, sisters-in-law, mother and father, and then grandchild would live there. My Grandpa, a product of the depression and a family that moved from home to home as they lost one after another from the bank would never not open his door to family - some for short stays as they shopped for a home and others like his brother, for the duration of his life. No family member was left behind. And holidays were the same - everyone was welcome, the "sides" of our family intermingled often, because it was more important to him that no one be alone than it was worrying about where someone "belonged."
And while my Grandpa could be opinionated and blunt, at his core, he was loving, caring, and a man that would never let anyone down. He did things for others and would talk about them, but it was never in a bragging, "look what I did way," it was simply in a way of showing that all through his life he had found ways to do his best to love and comfort people through what he did and not just by paying lip service. He just simply seemed to know what people needed and if he made a promise to do something for you, he kept that word. And that love and dedication to people is what made people love him so much. You could hear when he would tell stories how much love and empathy he had for those he held close. Sometimes the gestures were more simple than others, but always they came from that same place deep in his heart.
One of the many such stories I remember being told was about my Godfather who lost his father at the end of 8th grade. Exiting the church at the funeral, following the casket, my Grandpa noticed his nephew and watched his eyes travel from the moment that was his current reality to the stream of his classmates getting on the bus to head off for their trip to Cedar Point. He never said that in that moment how much he must know about what it was like to lose a parent as he had when his mother died from illness when he was in elementary school. Instead of offering the same words that everyone else did of condolences, he simply looked at the bus and then at his nephew and told him that he would take him there soon. And a few weeks later, I think when he sensed that people had stopped asking if he was doing okay and life was continuing on, even though for him, the one dealing with the loss, it was somehow empty, my Grandpa picked up the phone, told his sister-in-law to get everyone ready and he drove his family and theirs for a day at Cedar Point. In that moment he was keeping a very simple promise, but really it was so much more than that, he was picking a moment to give his nephew and his siblings a day to smile a little when he knew that there hadn't been many. To show them that while life would be different, it would go on and that they would find their way to laughter and fun again. Years later when so many of their friends would begin becoming widows and widowers, my Grandpa would go out of his way to not just make a blanket invitation, but to call individuals, invite them places, reassure them, pick them up, take them places with the group, and make sure that regardless of their loss that they still felt a part of their friend circle. He knew it was so easy for people to issue an invite or tell someone to call anytime, but another to actually take the time to check-in and make sure that someone was doing okay. They were simple gestures, but it was the type of ones that my Grandpa was so good at - he was remarkable at not letting anyone down and making moments for everyone.
It was that spirit that I would watch when he re-purchased countless toys for my youngest cousin, because she would wander into the house with many a broken, mangled toy, declaring in all her 3-year-old confidence that "Grandpa can fix it, Grandpa fixes everything," and he just couldn't bring himself to destroy that image. I miss witnessing those moments, the ones when larger than life, my Grandpa would fix things any way he could. When he would fix our family and hold them together time and time again. And I miss those talks, where regardless of how much we argued or agreed, underneath it all was the understanding that we didn't only have those words, because he cared so deeply about the person that he was conversing with in that moment.
As people visited those two long weeks in the hospital where we spent countless hours in the waiting room for the few moments the ICU would let us in per day and then that long day at the visitation, I heard countless stories from people about how much my Grandpa meant to them, the things he had done for so many people they knew and about how much they had heard stories about me and his other grandchildren.
He was such a special man, one that would never say the words, but always, always demonstrated the meaning of "I Love You" in his everyday life. And so, I miss the talks, but even more, I learned that all those words, everything you say, will mean nothing to anyone if you don't back them up with your actions. But if you live and act in an "I Love You" fashion, you never, ever have to say those words for people to wonder how you really feel.
Happy Father's Day to the best male role model I could wish for ever. I miss you Grandpa, everyday.
