My Grandfather

This is going to be hard for me, but I am inspired to do it by my sister, who recently wrote about something that is hard for her.

I was never close to my maternal grandfather. I always found him somewhat cold, stiff, and distant. I think this probably all stems from the fact that he and my dad didn't always see eye to eye and I'm basically my dad's little clone.

I have had a lot of issues, especially since I have grown up, with how things were with Papa. To say the least...he had his favorites and I was not one of them and I'm sorry to say the feeling was reciprocated. This can lead some deep scars, as it has on me. I think this was also thrown into somewhat of a harsh light considering that my other grandpa was the warmest and most sincere man I ever met. The difference in the two always reminded me of the MASH episode where Charles says to Hawkeye "Where I had a father, you had a dad."

But today in my neuroscience class, I had a glimpse of the humanity of my grandpa. We were talking about ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), the debilitating disease that eventually claimed Papa's life almost 6 years ago. I was particularly struck when my professor commented on how it was such a horrible way to die because you are completely cognizant, but you have no way to communicate. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

And then I got to thinking on my drive home...maybe Papa was the way he was because he had to be. A child of the Depression raised on a farm, he probably had to be tough to get through. He also supported 9 people for the bulk of his life, which also required you to be made of strong stuff.

In short I guess what I'm getting at is that maybe I wasn't seeing the whole man all these years...maybe I was just seeing what jumped out at me.