In Memoriam

My grandfather, whom I met once in my life, passed away on April 13th. My mother received the card today to let her know. It's a lima bean green card, with the words: "Just a note to inform you of the passing of your father." It gave her the date of his death as April 13th, signed by a woman she never knew, a sister of a friend. It's difficult to discern why anyone would choose this color of a card for any occasion.

I don't speak ill of the dead, especially when I only met the guy once during a half-hour layover at O'Hare. He was estranged from my family my whole life. Unable to keep grudges longer than four days, I never understood how that happens to families, but it does. People got their reasons. I'm not getting into his, because it's not my story to tell, and regardless, it's an old story of which I knew only scant details. Scant details are all I know of his life.

He was an Irish man, who did not give many of my family good memories. He left my mother sometime in the early '60's, I believe. (My grandmother remarried to an Air Force pilot, who later became a state trooper and a worker at the GM Janesville plant, two of the more common occupations that my family members who reside in Ohio have. This is the man I've called Grandpa my whole life.) So, I can't say I feel hurt from his passing, but I preferred a different resolution to his story.

I wanted him to meet us at O'Hare, and say to ma, "You know, I really fucked up leaving you all those years ago. I can understand if you never forgive me, but I love you. I always have. I'm sorry." I know, queue the swelling over-the-top Hollywood music. Hugs and kisses. He didn't even have to make an effort to be in our lives again. You know, but just acknowledge that it happened. He made his decisions, for better or worse. For whatever reason, it was something he had to do. I'm a man. I could see his reasons, even if I didn't agree with them.

Instead, I think we just got a Big Mac or something, and Christ, I can't remember what we talked about. It wasn't much. Years after this rushed encounter that I barely recall, my ma receives a green card. And that's the end of the story. No reconciliation. It was not even written in his words. I can't even remember his face.

I can only speak of him in death as I would speak of him in life. Yet, with sincerity, in the old words all of us Irish, failing or unfailing, deserve:

May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
And the rain fall softly on your fields
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Death is nothing at all.