The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Family

The Pain In My Grandfather’s Eyes

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It feels like forever since my grandfather passed away. I think that in part this is because he started to slip away long before his soul left his body.

Some people claim that his mind had started to go and at just short of 92 it is not totally unreasonable. I disagree with this. His mental faculties were intact, but his emotional capacity to deal with a body that no longer functioned as he wanted to was worn down.

Though we try to outrun the coming darkness there is a time in which we cannot maintain the pace and slowly the sun begins to set. In some respects it was like watching a row of dominos collapse. First his legs began to give him trouble and after a while he needed a cane to help him get around.

That worked for a while and then his pelvis gave out, there was a fracture and a stay at a rehab facility. There were various hospital stays for odds and ends. Things that never would have slowed him down suddenly turned into issues and led to other issues.

This is how it went. He would face some sort of medical challenge and slowly but surely he would overcome it. And each time he would come back home I would see that the fire in his eyes still burned, but the truth was that sometimes it was dimmer than before.

My grandfather was fiercely independent and I know without question that if his body had held up better his will to live would have kept him around longer. It is selfish of me to say that, but it is true.

As his body went, he retreated into memories of happier times. He became less responsive. It began to be more of a challenge to get him to talk. I worked on it. I tried to get him to tell me those stories that I loved so much. It didn’t matter that I had heard them a thousand times, I never got tired of them.

I can tell many of them, virtually word for word, but they lack the authenticity that he gave them. There are many to choose from but some stand out from the others. One in particular struck me.

It was the summer of 2004. The summer in which my father nearly died. For that reason alone it is a summer that I will never forget, but in regards to this particular story here is the relevance.

My grandfather was telling me stories about the Chicago of his youth. Interspersed were tales of his time with the carnival and of winters in New Orleans. At one point he changed gears and told me of a disagreement that he had had with his father.

The details of the disagreement aren’t important to this story. What really struck me was the hitch in his voice and the pain in his eyes as he told me this story. He remembered feeling ashamed that he had disappointed his father more than seventy years earlier.

So much time had passed, but sometimes the pain we experience doesn’t always go away. For a brief moment I could see the young man that my grandfather had been. For a moment I was able to relate to him in a way that I had never had before. For a moment the pain in my grandfather’s eyes took me back in time and then it was gone.

And now, so is he.

A Secret For My Children

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I have a game that I play each day with my children. It is a game, but it is one that I take quite seriously.

Each day I ask my children if they want to know a secret. And each time I ask they come running over to me and sit in my lap. You just never know what little nugget of wisdom dad might share this time.

In a very soft voice I whisper “The Secret is” and then I pause. Almost invariably their tiny faces look at me attentively and I finish the sentence with these words:

“I Love You.”

Oftentimes my son will issue a sigh of exasperation and say “I already know that secret.” That is part of the game in which he pretends to be irritated.

So you ask, what is the point of the game. The point is this. I want to do everything I can to ensure that my children never ever doubt my deep and abiding love for them.

Life can be quite cruel. Life can be hard and it can be tough. There will come moments of self doubt in which they question themselves. There will come moments in time in which they go on their own search for answers.

Right now I am trying to help provide them with a rock that will always be there to cling to. When things seem darkest I want them to be able to look inside and remember the love of their father. It is part of why I take blessing my children so very seriously.

On a side note I am waiting for the day when one of them tells me that it is not a secret. And with that allow me to bid you a good evening from paradise.

A Father’s Day Post

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Dad,

I don’t know if you’ll ever see this because I don’t share the blog with you or mom. You know about it and you have seen bits and pieces but you have never seen this. It is probably because this is as raw as I get. I open up here like no place else and that is just not how we are.

We share our thoughts and feelings. It is not like we don’t but we do it in a different way. We are close and I feel comfortable telling you about my life, but this is one of those places that is mine and I think that you understand it.

I think fondly of the moments I have shared sitting with you and grandpa and I smile when I think about the complaints we received about none of us speaking. I understand the silence, it is part of how the three of us communicate.

We three come from different places. Our childhoods were all different and I suppose that you and grandpa deserve congratulations because mine was better than both of yours. That is something to be proud of.

I am the only son and the only grandson. I am the keeper of the name and the time will come when I will be responsible for passing along certain stories and traditions. I take it very seriously and one day I look forward to sharing some of these with my own son.

I look at you and I am impressed with so many things. You are tougher and smarter than I am. You work harder and you have had so many good things come of it.

My sisters and mother frequently tell me that I sound like a clone of you and in many ways that is true. Sometimes when I am speaking with the children I hear your words but they are being said by my voice.

You taught me to look carefully at the world around me and not to let my admiration for a person blind me to their faults. And I took that to heart. That means that I am well aware of your own faults.

Those faults are a part of you and my recognition of them is part of my maturation. You aren’t superman anymore. You are fallible and you make mistakes as do we all but that is ok.

I think that part of our growing closer is my ability to really see you and to understand that you didn’t always have all of the answers, to recognize that we have had similar struggles.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense but what I am really trying to say is that I love and appreciate you. I respect you and I am thankful for all that you gave and continue to give to me.

Generations

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My mother remembers the Summer of ’69 for many reasons. During the day my father had a full time job and at night he worked to finish his masters. In between he spent as much time as possible with my mother and his newborn son (me).

A new mother has a lot on her plate and my own was none too happy when she learned about the murders that had taken place she was less than pleased to be home alone at nights with her baby boy. But time passed and she grew more comfortable as a mother and less concerned about the various bogeyman of the night.

In time the family grew larger, a younger sister and then twin sisters joined our brood. At the grand old age of 30 my mother had four children ranging in age from 5 years-old to a little less than a month. During that time frame I went from having four grandparents and three great grandparents to just three grandparents.

Within a year the numbers adjusted again as my sole surviving great-grandfather died and my grandfather remarried. The readjusted number left me with four grandparents and two great-grandmothers.

The advantage of being the oldest of my siblings is that I remember all of the grandparents, including my dad’s mom who passed away when I was just shy of three. Granted the memories I have of her are fuzzy, but they exist.

The hardest memory is trying to recall her voice. I am just not sure that I really remember it and suspect that I really don’t remember it at all.

I didn’t lose my great-grandmothers until I was a teenager as they lived to be about 95 and 96 respectively. It is possible that they were slightly older or younger as the recordkeeping when they were born was not as tight as it is now.

My father has a picture that was taken when I was about 11 months old. It is of my great-grandfather, grandfather, father and myself. Four generations of the men of my family.

Thirty years later my son had the privilege of being part of a similar picture as he is seated with myself, my father and grandfather. That picture is hung next to the older version. It means a lot to me and I hope that when he is older he will appreciate it.

I remember my great-grandfather but I am not old enough to have shared in the telling of stories of his youth in Lithuania. I know from his children stories of he and my great-grandmother hiding from the Cossacks. And I know the stories of his work in Chicago in helping to establish unions and tales of fist fights with the police. I wish that I could have heard them from him, but that was not to be.

For a while after my son’s birth he was privileged to have five great-grandparents. We have since lost a great-grandmother and now we are down to four great-grandparents. It is a joy and a blessing that is lost upon my children but he is only five and my daughter isn’t quite two so I cannot really fault them.

I do what I can to make sure that they see their great-grandparents as often as possible as I can see the sand in the hourglass running. One of my grandfathers lives with my parents now and that is an interesting situation. I watch and learn from my parents as they show what kabed et evecha veh et eemecha really means and at the same time I see the toll that it is taking upon them.

I am worried because my grandfather requires more and more assistance and taking care of him becomes less a labor of love and more like work. I do what I can to help and I try hard to ease the load for all of them.

I know that it is hard for all three of them. I cannot imagine being in a position in which my children have to care for me and it pains me sometimes to see it. It reminds me of the old saying that goes something like this:

“When a father helps a son to walk only the child cries but when a son helps a father to walk they both cry”

At the same time I am watching my mother’s parents age too. It is not such an easy thing but it is the price we happily pay to be able to have kept them around for so many years. I’d write more but I have lost my muse.

So instead of continuing I am going to provide links to other posts about my grandparents.

A Grandson’s Distraction

Married for More Than 70 Years

I Feel Your Pain And I Share My Own

Putting It All In Perspective

Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy but sometimes life can be challenging.

You Don’t Smell Like Daddy

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My niece fell asleep in my lap. For a short while I let her use me as a substitute for her mattress and then it became necessary to move her to her bed.

I carefully picked her up and moved her to her bed. I must have jostled her just a little because she woke up long enough to mutter in my ear “you don’t smell like daddy.”

It made me smile because for a moment I realized that I had the perfect opportunity to tell my brother-in-law that his daughter thinks he stinks. I was all set to hand him some deodorant and a towel and then I thought better of it.

In truth it was because my father happened to be close by and I realized that I could smell his cologne and it occurred to me that if I close my eyes for a moment I can smell him just as I can smell my grandparents and my mother.

Smell is an amazing sense. I am forever amazed by how a scent can trigger so many memories. I wonder what my children think I smell like.

My Reward

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This past August I wrote about Blessing My Children. It is something that I take quite seriously and derive much pleasure from.

Today I received what I consider to be a reward from this practice. My son hurt himself and came to me seeking comfort. I gave him a hug and kissed his head but he said that was not enough and asked me to give him his special blessing.

I couldn’t have been happier. I have worked hard to create a special moment in time, a sanctuary that he and his sister can rely upon and I am so very pleased to see that he recognizes it as such. I do this for them because they are so very important.

Life is good.