Grandpa and me (Kipling and rocketships and deck 'em)

[mrissa]

There is a lot of stuff around here that Needs Doing. Just a lot. Laundry to shovel out and bills to pay and stories to submit and a million other mundane activities, to say nothing of the less mundane ones. Yesterday I decided that I am not taking my grandpa's birthday off my calendar, and I am not crossing his name out of my address book. If Grandma decides to sell the house, I will put in a new label with just her. But until then, I can't and I don't have to.

(A lot of people have asked if Grandma will decide to sell the house. The answer is that she has a lot to get through and think about right now, and nobody is in any rush for her to make that decision. For those of you who don't speak Scandosotan fluently, the implied addendum there is that the rest of us will Take It Poorly if someone else tries to push her on this.)

Anyway: there is a lot of stuff around here that Needs Doing, and I am still exhausted and having trouble eating and sleeping. So things are moving a bit slowly, and I would really like to ask your patience. If I seem to be acting as though you're stupid, please consider the idea that I might be stupid at the moment and not very well able to think past it.

Yesterday I took the two books I had borrowed from Grandpa off the "borrowed books" pile and put them on the fiction and nonfiction piles, respectively. I don't have all of Grandpa's books yet, but I took some home with me in addition to those two. There was a volume of Kipling that did not, as I expected, say, "R. W. Adams" on the flyleaf. It said, "Geo. W. Adams, 1936." It was Great-Grandpa's Kipling. This startled me. I knew Gran so well and saw so much of Gran in Grandpa that it's easy to forget how much of Great-Grandpa there was, too. It didn't really occur to me that Kipling was our thing because it had first been his with his dad.

One of the funerary customs of my people--which is pretty similar to the funerary customs of a lot of other people, though of course not all--is the ritual Pretending You Hadn't Heard That Story A Million Times Already. So you have probably heard this story a million times already, and some of the others I will tell, too, but your job here is to smile and nod along. (You are allowed to acknowledge already knowing the story if and only if you say something like, "I always liked that story.")

When I went off to first grade, we had a school "guidance counselor" who was apparently there to soothe our social transitions or something like that. She never guided me much, and I never wanted her to. Anyway, her name was Mrs. Way, and she was an extremely sweet woman. One day my mom got a phone call from Mrs. Way. "We were talking about conflict resolution today, Mrs. Lingen," she said, "and Marissa said that her grandpa says that if anybody gives her any trouble, she should just deck 'em. Mrs. Lingen, what's deck 'em?" So then my mom had to explain it to her.

Probably there was at least one person in my first grade class who would have benefited greatly and had a personal growth opportunity if only I had followed Grandpa's advice in this matter. I can certainly think of some examples since.

The one I couldn't fit into the flow of what I wrote for the memorial, but wanted to, was the story of Grandpa and me at Disneyland when I was 4. I liked Tomorrowland best--Tomorrowland was obviously the best--and I liked making Grandpa come with me on the rides. We were on a rocketship ride where the rockets went in a circle and you could move a joystick up and down to adjust your particular rocketship's altitude. Well, I had immediately grasped the joystick and was making it go UPDOWNUPDOWNUPDOWN, and Grandpa was turning a little green. "Say, Rissy," he said, "do you think I could have a turn?" I gave him a severe look and said, "Grandpa, I'm in control here."

I don't really feel like I am. One of the other questions people kept asking is that they ask various family members how other family members are doing. I kept overhearing Mom and Grandma on the phone, pausing a little and saying, "Well, she's having a pretty tough time with it. Grandpa was the moon and stars to her."

This is true.

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

They are good stories.

[sdn.livejournal.com]

keep posting about this. i love to read it.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

"Deck 'em." That one got me in a bit of hot water at not-much-older than that age. Mom told me to do it to the next boy who flipped up my skirt. The teacher suggested I just wear pants. Mom told her to stuff it because "shouldn't have worn that dress" has no place in second grade.

"Deck 'em" is sage advice for young ladies.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Shouldn't have worn that dress" has no place anywhere. But especially not in the second grade. Of course I want to teach my goddaughters and niece and young friends to behave prudently, but a) wearing a dress is well within the bounds of prudent behavior and b) if an authority figure refuses to deal with the person who did something wrong by focusing on my goddaughters/niece/young friends who did not do something wrong, there will be hell to pay.

(We have stated more than once that one of our jobs as godparents is Standing Army. This will be a funny joke until the day when we are called in with our mighty fury.)

[columbina.livejournal.com]

In the culture of MY birth and youth, Godparent and Standing Reserve Army are essentially equivalent concepts. I am in favor.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

Mom told her to stuff it because "shouldn't have worn that dress" has no place in second grade.

Your mother rules!

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

The moments were few and far between but there were a couple that she really shone for me. Third grade when the teacher took away my book for being "too grown up" stands out too. She took time off work to go to the school and tell the teacher to mind her own business because if her 8 year old was capable of reading Gone With The Wind that was a *good* thing.

[rosefox]

Those are both marvelous stories (and no, I haven't heard them before). I wish I could have met your grandpa, and even better, seen the two of you together.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I still have my Dad's birthday on my calendar. Every year I see it, think for a moment that maybe I should take it off my calendar, and every year I don't.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And it's not like we'll forget. I don't have Gran's birthday on my calendar now, after 13 years, but I know when it is. I notice it.

But still. It's not about whether I'll forget. It's just...not time to take it off. And it doesn't have to be.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

In our family, we buy flowers on dead people's birthdays. We don't necessarily say anything about it, but we do it. My grandmother died in 1975, and her birthday is April 5th, and my aunt and I will both have flowers.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I love the flowers! I sometimes do the Jewish thing of lighting a yahrtzeit candle on the anniversary of a death, and I sometimes don't.

What I do is keep people in my email inbox (people who died before I or they have email I keep in my heart). When I archive and prune and save things to disk, the dead people stay at the top of the old queue. So to have a note from my mom, or Jenna Felice, or a few other people, all I have to do is scroll to the top of my email.

I think about deleting those emails, or putting them somewhere else, but I don't do it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We never got Grandpa to do e-mail. He just never wanted a computer. Loved using Skype on my mom's computer to talk to Sweden, though.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I do the same thing.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

My problem with that is that I never remember yahrtzeits, even on the regular calendar let alone the lunar one. (People who belong to synagogues have this one taken care of because the synagogue will send a reminder or include it in a newsletter.) I do remember birthdays, because those are the dates I've known all my life. And so on my grandparents' birthdays I try to call my mom and or uncle, so we can at least remember together even if we don't talk about it. (Not talking is unlikely for us, though.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I like both the flowers and the not necessarily saying anything about it.

[laurel]

Buying flowers on birthdays is a wonderful idea. I always feel like I want to do something, but am often at a loss. Would be especially appropriate for my Grandma Olson and Grandpa Krahn who both loved flowers and were excellent gardeners.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

It doesn't *ever* have to be.

On Grandpa's birthday when he was alive, we usually brought in Chinese food. That was what he liked best. Since his death in 1993, we continue to eat Chinese food on his birthday, for the same reason. If we can we order Egg Fu Yung, which was his favorite specifically. I suspect by the same logic (and Grandma's similar preferences) we will be having Chinese food on her birthday too.

Grandpa died before Mirth and I started dating, so Mirth only knows him by stories, and by Chinese food every August 10. It's in his calendar as Egg Fu Yung Day. Maybe for LMH's children, egg fu yung in August and dry-fried string beans in February will be as immutable as latkes on Chanukah.

You never know, maybe that's how the latke thing got started.

What would you eat on your Grandpa's birthday in order to remember him?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Garlic bread. I ate a lot of different things with Grandpa, but he would eat as much garlic bread as you would make available. There were a couple of bits of dialog that went with it.

I am suddenly feeling glad that I bought him gjetost for Christmas Eve smorgasbord, even though I totally fibbed to him about it being on sale because he fussed about prices of things like that.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

No, it's not about forgetting.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Those are marvelous stories. (I'm charmed by the idea of a real grown-up person who doesn't know the expression "deck 'em". I didn't know such innocence still existed.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It turns out this level of innocence is not necessarily an asset in dealing with grade school kids, who may not have the terminology but are not short on the concepts.

[elsue.livejournal.com]

About selling the house--I think the official "advice to the bereaved" is don't make any major decisions for a year. It's not always practical, but it seems to me to be excellent advice. (Sometimes not so major decisions--my sister-in-law decided she HAD to cancel my brother's credit cards within the first week, and didn't realize there were services that were automatically billed to it.)

You and your Grandpa clearly had an amazing relationship. That is so cool.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My grandma is a very level-headed person, so I think that when she feels ready to make various decisions, it'll be because she is ready to make various decisions. Which is a good thing not to have to worry about.

[elsue.livejournal.com]

I actually suspected your grandma was level-headed. Very cool.

[laurel]

This is another beautiful post-- your love and affection for your Grandpa really comes through.

The stories are great.

I can't really fathom anyone complaining about hearing stories like this again.

It's cool that you got to travel with your grandparents as much as you did; one set of my grandparents were really tied to a farm (even after they retired to a hobby farm, they still had horses and other animals to tend). I did get to travel some with my other Grandpa, which was fun.

That they say "moon and stars" and it's true is a great thing. That it's known and that it was is great.

[laurel]

And immediately after I hit the "save" or "reply" button or whatever, I realized "was" isn't even right. I imagine he still is the moon and stars to you; it's not like that goes away.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am feeling less positive about lunar eclipses than I otherwise might.

[tanac.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

(your disneyland story is so very you. :) )

[pameladean]

Those are great stories.

P.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

I never heard those stories. :) And if I have heard other stories, I'd like to hear them again.

What I wouldn't give for teleportation in the Tomorrowland sense. You know, I'm not a tidy person, but one thing I do well is run massive amounts of laundry through the system. Wish I could do it for you now.

I didn't take my grandma's phone number out of my cell phone until I got a new cell phone ... this week. (She died in 2/06.) I still have it memorized anyway.

[redbird]

I especially like the story of the guidance counselor. It never would have occurred to me that "deck 'em" was obscure or regional slang.

Also, one needn't speak Scandasotan to get that parenthetical, though in another dialect it might have stronger implications that your grandmother would, personally, take such a thing poorly and might lash out at the offender.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Adams? I know it's a common name, but I wonder whether you and my husband might be distantly related.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think we attempted to play Adams bingo and came up short once.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Your youthful memory is better than my aged one!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, I meant we = me and your husband, so there's no reason for you to remember it regardless of age.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that would be a relief if I remembered what we were talking about...

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

Thank you for telling the stories -- they're wonderful.

[keilexandra]

You draw your Grandpa so vividly in your writing; I can hear him saying, "Say, Rissy," in my head, although I never met him.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I have not, in fact, Heard That Story A Million Times Already, and it puts a smile on my face. (I'm curious what the counselor thought about this advice, once the term was explained to her.)

I had a very odd experience talking to my uncle before I went off to college. This was my father's much older (and only) brother, who had for most of my life been the uncle we didn't really talk to or about because he was an alcoholic and rather a dyed-in-the-wool Midwestern bigot, but during my teenaged years he dried out and became someone we could have a relationship with, and so this was one of the only real conversations I ever had with the man. He told me not to let any boys buy me drinks, and when I explained to him that I don't really like alcohol, he clarified that he was actually worried about roofies. Which is more or less the last thing I expected to hear from my seventy-year-old uncle. But very practical, and it makes me wonder if he too would have supported the "deck 'em" theory of resolving trouble. I think he might have.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The counselor thought it was upsetting, but since I showed no signs of putting it into practice and my mother assured her they did not condone violence, she calmed herself.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I haven't been able to figure out what to say to this yet, because I am so fervently convinced that every girl needs a grandpa who hung the moon and stars for her. And so finally I'm giving up and just saying that: I do not know what to say, but I'm glad you had the right kind of grandfather and I am thinking of you and of him.

edited to remove gibberish. guess i really *didn't* know what to say.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I think it's important not to wait for perfection in a situation like this.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Those are great stories. He sounds like he was an awesome Grandpa.