For Grandpa, it was all about attitude. He was always smiling, whistling while he worked and was never one to stand still. As an entrepreneur … could take any business from nothing and make it into a thriving enterprise. At one time, he had a restaurant, hotel and grand home at a very popular summer resort. My grandmother ran the day-to-day operations and was very happy living there.

He was also very industrious. He could take a rundown house and with a little paint, wall paper and carpentry, turn it into something much better – all on a shoestring budget – with frequent trips to the furniture thrift store.

Volunteering his time, he would also visit kids in the hospital, hand painting their room windows with their favorite cartoon characters. The kids just loved him!

A successful salesman, selling ‘pots & pans’ (as he liked to call it) he sold to commercial kitchens; and in later life, before his untimely death, he started up a Dry Cleaning business: his idea of a Retirement Savings Plan.

He often used his great sales skills on me – a typical non-compliant teenager – like the time he asked me to help him with a spring cleanup project. Initially, I rebelled against this… couldn’t see why I should help when all my friends were lazing about. Grandpa saw no future in that; so, using his considerable charm he said, “Freddy, think of how fantastic it’s going to be seeing the house with all those windows shining in the sun!” And, just like that, he had me hooked.

And you know, he was right. Looking back, I can still feel how proud I felt when I had finished. Teaching by example, that was my grandpa!

Some years after he passed away, I asked grandma how she felt living without his larger than life personality? She just smiled and said at times he drove her crazy. He was a great people person; but, he was also a bit of a rolling stone – always wanting to move on. She then sighed and said, “Still, I miss him, Freddy.” – as we all did.

His personality and love of life was contagious.

When grandmother passed away and we were getting her house ready for sale, I noticed something written on the old shed door I hadn’t noticed before. Grandpa had written (he was always writing), ‘Man is closer to God in a garden, than anywhere else on earth.’

That pretty well sums it up. He was the gardener of our lives – pruning here; nurturing there. When he died, it left a huge hole in our lives, where a great … not perfect … man once lived. As Elton John sang, in Empty Garden, “A gardener like that one no one can replace.”

Photo Credit

Photo is pixabay Creative Commons

First published at fredparry.ca

Guest Author Bio
Fred Parry
Fred Parry lives in Southern Ontario. He is a lover of people and a collector of stories, music, wisdom, and grandchildren. His newspaper column, Music in Me, can be found in ‘The New Hamburg Independent’ Metroland Media. His book, ‘The Music In Me’ (2013) Friesen Press is Available from Amazon and Indigo / Chapters.

Blog / Website: www.fredparry.ca

1. Children are important.

2 . Your family is all you ever really have.
You have to stick together and care about them even when they don’t deserve it. This made him the guy his brothers went to whenever they had troubles. It impressed on me that I will never be the kind of sister, niece, aunt, daughter or mom who stops talking to my family. He would tell me if I ever thought about it “That’s not the way we do things.”

3 . Sometimes good things come out of bad.
When I was having a rough time he would tell me about the time his cat ate Johnny Raymond’s canary. It led to a great friendship once he convinced Johnny not to beat the hell out of him. Even if nothing good came of my own situation that story always made me laugh.

4. There is really no point in trying to get away with something you don’t want people to know you did.
Someone will always find out. I learned this because every single time my grandfather killed the car battery by leaving the lights on, flooded the kitchen by leaving a tap on or ran out of gas, the person he least wanted to find him would show up. This is why it’s best to own up to mistakes and mishaps.

5 . Visitors are like fish. You don’t want to keep them around too long.
He actually used to say that. It is pretty true though. In general we all need our space and whenever we spend too much time together it can really test us all.

6. Make sure you set boundaries in your life and relationships.
My grandfather was mortified if people talked about their body parts and functions, illnesses or intimate relationships. NO one wants to hear that stuff. My grandfather believed in privacy. He would have loved the acronym TMI .

7. Whether you are happy or sad it’s always good to go for a drive “up the road”.
“Up the Road” could mean a lot a places, a short trip or one that took all day. It was better if someone you loved came along to tell you how lovely the trees, grass, or dirt was, and if you could get ice cream along the way .

8. Love the people you love well.
My grandfather was not the strong silent type . He was okay with having people know he adored my grandmother and all of us. He was good at saying he loved us. This was outside the box for men in his generation. He wasn’t mushy, but he let you know. And it meant a lot .

9. Take advantage of all the good things that come your way.
I learned this from watching my grandfather eat. He was a little imp of a man, but if someone offered dessert he was never too full. If it was pie he would try every kind there was. He wasn’t above sharing a toddler’s chocolate bar with them. Accepting what people offer does something good for you, and for them. We all need that.

10. You need to be in charge of your own direction.
My grandfather was part of a generation in which women often did not drive. I was a late bloomer to driving and he nagged me relentlessly about it. It was only after I could drive that I realized how limited I was without it. I know my grandfather believed we should be strong and capable and independent. Driving yourself is one way to make sure you get to where you are going.

Photo Credit

Photo by Donna Leskosek – All Rights Reserved

He rolls his eyes, then stares at the ceiling as if somehow his patience is up there hiding in the light fixture. “Really? After all these years one little class reunion is enough to make you fall off the wagon.” I can see he doesn’t like the way this story is going.

“Well, it was your fault I became an alcoholic in the first place.”

“My fault. My fault! How was it my fault?”

Should I tell him that it was because he got a job with Boson Contractors where he met the petite, blond mechanic and had an affair? And that I found out about it but that keeping it a secret had sent me spiralling into alcoholism? No, better I keep that to myself. If I told him now he would just get in a huff, purse his lips in disapproval, and stalk away. And we don’t have time for those dramatics right now.

“You don’t need to know the details. We can talk about it later.” I check my manicure closely so he can’t see my face. I can tell he’s trying to remember about the beginning of my alcoholism but is unable to come up with the particulars. “So we went to the reunion – it was my 40th. I lose you in the crowd and immediately that slut, Mara Johnson, is all over you like an octopus on a freshly killed lobster…”

Albert groans. “Mara. Not Mara again. Why? Why does it always have to be Mara? She’s been a pain in the ass for sixty years.”

“Well, who else would it be after all this time?” I ask. “Without her we lose continuity.”

“Wasn’t she killed by her third husband…that was well before your 40th.”

Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. “You can’t just whack someone off because she is a pain in the ass,” I say. “Just because someone causes a little marital strife in our relationship doesn’t mean it’s the spectral finger of death for her.”

“Why not?” he asks. “Didn’t Old Lady Hannigan die a convenient death?”

“That was different and you know it. If she didn’t die when she did then the dog would never have been found.” He shrugs then motions for me to go on. “So there I am, abandoned and drifting, when I see Ashley….”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Not Ashley. Can’t we get through one fucking event without Ashley?”

“Well, it’s a class reunion for pity sake,” I say. “Of course Ashley has to be there.” I can feel my cheeks starting to warm. Ashley, tall, brooding, and still handsome after all these years. The thought of his warm eyes and come-hither smile make my loins turn liquid. Of course Ashley has to be there. “So Ashley and I go off to find a quiet place to talk, then he tells me about the great tragedy where his wife dies in a horrible can-opener accident.”

“No!” Albert yells. “I will not allow it. I will not put up with Ashley’s wife dying. It took years to finally find him the perfect mate. This is too much.”

I take a deep, shaky breath. “He told me that he’d found a new woman. Thirty-five years younger,” I say. My heart feels like it is weighted with lead ball bearings. How can I bear this betrayal? How can Ashley be such a man? I thought he was above this kind of thing. Albert looks at me and smiles. “Well, now you know why I had to go and find a drink.” Even though it is only nine in the morning I kind of do feel like I need a drink while I sit here and relive the moment. Ashley and some thirty-year-old hussy – it will take years for my heart to heal.

“Okay, so you fell off the wagon, and I’m off with the slut, Mara, and trying to get her to keep her hands from groping my man parts. Then what?”

“Well, then I was so overcome with the shame of breaking my sobriety that I run from the room and straight into the caterers carrying the cake. Next thing I know I am covered head to toe in cake shrapnel. The caterer is mortified, as am I, and we go off to find myself some clothes to wear.”

“And you think June and Bev are going to buy this?”

***

We look at each other and nod. I won’t say it’s been easy, but it has been successful. After all, compared to all the other old coots in this place we’ve never gone one weekend without a visit from a family member.

“So then I say, ‘If only I could remember where I left my pants.’” Both girls scream with laughter then jump up and give me a hug.

“Grandma, if I live to be a thousand years old I will never experience a tenth of what you and grandpa have lived through,” Bev exclaims. I can see from her face that she is shocked but entertained at the same time.

“Tell us about Old Lady Hannigan and Mitzy,” June says. “That story never gets old.”

I stand up to fetch more chocolate biscuits and coffee. “It’s early in the morning, the rain doesn’t know if it wants to be snow, I open the door to retrieve the paper and there standing on the stoop is the wettest, most bedraggled, little dog I have ever seen…” my husband says.

Image Credit

“St. Monicas Home, Bristol” by Paul Townsend. flickr.com. Some rights reserved.

Suburban Detroit. With its tight knit backyards, crisscrossed overhead with telephone wires. From where we sat it was a mere 10 mile drive south to one of the richest towns in America: Grosse Pointe Shores. Go another seven miles and you land in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the country. Alongside it all: the lake. Lake St. Clair. Playground of the wealthy and passageway to Canada.

Above us, the birds lined up on the wires. Little birds mostly. Sparrows. Robins. Black capped chickadees. A handful of crows. Perhaps a blue jay squawking in to disturb things now and then.

Sometimes, they lined up in such a way that they faced each other, almost like sparring armies. Other times, it was more a side by side arrangement, like great grandma and I on the swinging chair.

When we spoke, the conversation was basic. Nothing really “profound” was said. However, there was a sharing that went beyond words, something unspeakable which seems more and more difficult to locate these days. In this hyper speed, alienated from the earth world we live in.

I’m not sure I ever asked great grandma what she thought of the world today, and she’s gone now. However, I know that one of her favorite things to do was to play cards with family and friends. Sitting around a table chatting, goofing off, and occasionally cheating (more than once, that needed ace or king “magically” appeared from under the table) – that was the good life to her. Nothing fancy. No designer gadgets. No virtual game systems. Sound systems.

She was extravagant about living the ordinary well. Cooking pierogis to perfection. Telling a joke off color enough to make her more conservative children blush. Wearing a fancy blouse or set of earrings on a day where nothing was happening, just because.

Sometimes, when I see a row of birds landing above me, I can hear her laughing. If I squint my eyes, and look a little closer, I can even see the hidden ace waiting to be put into her soon to be perfect hand.

Great grandma lived to be 101. It’s up to the rest of us to see that she hasn’t gone anywhere really. Only changed forms, as we all will do someday.

Photo Credit:

Great Grandmother by Ryan Wiedmaier via Flickr Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.

As luck would have it he lands a job working for a military base situated next to the small village where my grandmother lives. One look at the handsome new boy in town, and an evening of listening to his tales of woe, and my gran is smitten. They are married soon afterwards and set up house close to the army base. Almost immediately after settling into marital bliss cracks start to appear in their relationship. Had the marriage been a train carrying boxes of dynamite the derailment would have caused epic explosions.

My grandmother is strong willed, highly principled and always puts her family ahead of her own needs. My grandfather is quick to make new friends, insists on spending money for his clothes even before paying rent, and is easily swayed by a complimentary word thrown in his direction. Grandfather rules the house with an iron fist, and with her Victorian attitudes my grandmother kowtows to his tirades – until he goes too far and she has to put her foot down.

Two children and a few years later the not-so-happy couple have become respectable members of their community. Then one day as my mother and uncle are playing outside they look up to see my grandfather proudly walk into the yard wearing a dashing uniform. They follow him into the house excited to see their mother’s reaction to this debonair new look. Many years later my mother recounts the sight of my grandfather showing off his new uniform by marching back and forth across the kitchen floor in front of my grandmother. The year was 1939, the country was Hungary, and the uniform was from the Nyilaskeresztes Párt, the Arrow Cross Party.

The children are shooed from the house and spend the next few hours waiting anxiously as a notso-private war wages inside the house. Suddenly the door flies open and a red-faced, chagrined civilian carrying a neatly folded uniform storms out of the house and down the street. Grandfather returns a few minutes later with reinforcements who after a very brief period of time also leave the house looking discomfited and mortified. Thus ends the first of my grandfather’s forays into politics.

Flash forward several years until after the end of a brutal world war: although battered and bruised, the village is still there; the army base is in the same place, but instead of Germans it now houses a large troop of Russians. My grandfather is still a shoemaker and a tailor for the army and for the civilians of the village. He is a craftsman who is much sought after as his creations are the best in the entire province. The years have darkened his hair a little which has only enhanced his looks. One day he walks into the house proudly wearing a new pin for the Magyar Kommunista Párt, the Hungarian Communist Party. This battle is much shorter than the first conflict over the Arrow uniform but even more heated. Grandfather leaves in a fury; my mother later says she swears she could see sparks from his boots as he stomped down the street.

When my grandfather returns he is accompanied by the party secretary and two of his cronies bearing baskets which contain chocolate, wine, cigarettes, nylons, toys, sugar, flour, bread, perfume, and much, much more. Things which my mother said hadn’t been seen in the house since before the war. But soon three disconcerted and defeated men, and their baskets, leave the house never to return. Thus ends my grandfather’s second, and last, foray into the world of politics.

Image Credits

All photos property of Gab Halasz

as the ground beneath me unearthed new understandings
of nothingness, seeing without motion through
crowds of people in stillness,

the narrows of home guiding ships to safe passage
left me looking around the room for music

in dry rain falling over the
Atlantic Ocean, but on slippery roads

the fiddles fell down rotting
with salt, black and grey on beige staining nothing
but past echoes of fish laden women cleaning on
sighted light through open doorways where she stood.

Photo Credit

Photo By Melinda Cochrane – All Rights Reserved

Manford Oram Wilson, or Norman to most folk, had come from a hard world. As the oldest of a dozen children, living on a farm in New Brunswick, Norm had dropped out of school to work, had lied about his age to join the Navy during World War II and had gone to great lengths to ensure the well-being of his siblings. Much of my grandfather’s past lies in shadows, for he did not often speak of those days to me, or to anyone. As I understand it, Norm had done everything he could to help out his family, including a stint as a bare-knuckle boxer, fighting for extra money to bring home. So, let me focus on what I do know, those moments that I can vividly remember that helped to shape me.

I think that the first lesson that I really learned from the man was the sense of equality. His marriage to my grandmother was a partnership, where both shared duties equally. Both of them cooked, they baked, they cleaned the house and each spent time with their children and grandchildren. He was not a man who believed in ‘woman’s work’, nor did he wish to have a wife who would stay at home to ‘tend to the homestead’. He saw my grandmother, not a thing to possess, but a woman that he was lucky to share his life with. In the end, he saw her as a person, a human being, and one that he couldn’t be without.

I look back at this, my grandparent’s marriage, as a blueprint for my own and when I see the way some other couples treat each other, I consider myself very lucky for having such an example.

I can remember cold days, spent on the frozen creek behind his house, where he taught me how to play hockey. Where he taught me not to give up just because I couldn’t do something well the first time. If I missed a shot, or stumbled on my skates, he would just chuckle and encourage me to get up and try again. Like Rico from Starship Troopers would say, ‘Never give up, never surrender!’ Thanks to those cold days out on the frozen creek, I was able to develop into a decent player.

But, if there is one memory that I can’t help but focus on, as I muse on Norman, it’s the day we – my grandmother and I – took him to hospital for his diagnosis.

We were sitting on either side of his bed, he having just come out of the examination room, curtained off from the rest of the world. We were quiet, awaiting the news, too anxious to even breathe, when the doctor entered our little cocoon. When he gave us the news, that Norman had developed bowel cancer, I can distinctly remember the sound that my grandmother made; a gasp that was so heartbreaking that I’m tearing up as I write about it. For me the world just stopped, as did my heart. It had hit me like a Mack Truck, full on and I couldn’t even make a sound.

I remember looking at him, his eyes level and his expression ‘all-business’. He just looked the doctor in the eye and said, ‘Okay Doc, what do we need to do?’ No shock, no dread, not even a flinch. I saw a man staring death in the eye, unwilling to give it the satisfaction of seeing him shaken. He was cold iron in that moment and it was then that I realized the man’s true strength. When the doctor left, Norman spent the next few minutes comforting my grandmother, who to her credit was doing all she could to hold back the grief.

Over the next few months, as he dealt with the chemotherapy and with the cancer that was rapidly spreading throughout his body, I cannot recall ever seeing that strength, that determination to greet death with stoic acceptance, falter. Never once did he allow it to lessen his love of his life and his family, never did he allow it get the better of him, until the day it finally took him.

Two Friday’s ago it would have been his 86th birthday. I guess I just want the world to know that I miss him.

Photo Credits

A Frozen Creek – The Microsoft Office Clip Art Collection

Cold Days On A Frozen Creek – Insecte – Wikimedia Creative Commons

Guest Author Bio

Marshall McCarthy
Marshall is an aspiring novelist and writer, who stops by to offer his thoughts, opinions and musings, hoping to share and even gain a little bit of perspective. He is married (to a wonderful woman), lives in South Central Ontario and may or may not have a small addiction to video games.

Follow Marshall in Facebook

My grandparents, Bess and Reg Taylor, eloped on Remembrance Day. For our family it became a day as special as they were. They lived in a house that was right across from the cenotaph. From the time my children and my nephews and nieces were little my grandfather told them stories about the “war.”  They would go on walks and play around the cenotaph. My grandfather used these times and walks to instill values in our children. Some of his stories were just stories, but our children benefitted from every moment spent with him. My grandfather was a veteran, even though he never left Canadian soil in wartime. His brothers were veterans too.

Each Remembrance Day we would gather at their house. Long past the days of playing soldiers when the children became teenagers they would all join him and walk to the cenotaph. Even after my grandfather died our children would travel here, from jobs and college in other towns. My brother would come from Lethbridge. My grandmother would give the kids the wreath and they would place it on the cenotaph.

My grandfather was not rich. He was not athletic. He could not fix a thing. The times he needed to be rescued because he’d left the car lights on, lost his keys or flooded the kitchen are too many to be counted. He made us laugh everyday though. He showed us what it was like to have a great love and treat her like a queen. He made each one of us know that we were the center of his world. He taught first me and my siblings and then our children the importance of family, of commitment. He let us know that we are smart and good and capable of great things.

There is much to be said for a man who inspires the best in his grandchildren and great grandchildren. There is even more to be said for a man in his 90s who is the best friend of teenage boys. We are smart and good and capable because of the time you took with all of us Reg. You gave us so much to remember.

Photo credit

“Forgotten Circle.”  Flickr Creative Commons. Some rights reserved by ljcybergal

There is a lilac tree that blooms in the spring in the huge yard that my children and their cousins loved to run in. We had Easter egg hunts there each spring. My grandfather was as excited as the children, and perhaps loved the chocolate more. One Christmas he put the artificial tree together upside down, cursing the ” broom handle tree”. The house was his dream. The castle that he bought for his queen. The house cost him years of working for the coal mine. He bought it late in life.

My grandparents had thought owning a home was unattainable, and then there was no choice. The town we all had lived in was demolished. The home they had rented forever was to be bulldozed, so they found a way to buy a house and then they made it into a home.

We were lucky that it was just down the street from us, and myself and my three siblings could go there as often as we liked. My grandparents were always happy to have us. Even our family dog, Andy, escaped there sometimes, to feast on the donuts my grandmother bought just for him. My grandfather would give him a lift back home in his old car when Andy was done visiting.

It was the place I went to when I was both in trouble and when I was filled with joy. I told them there I’d failed grade eight and years later that I was accepted into college. I sat in the living room and cried when my heart was broken and I shared my joy there when I had fallen in love. I took my babies and my troubles there. Recently my daughter and my niece wore their high school graduation gowns there. They delighted my grandmother who thought they looked like princesses.

My grandparents made a pact not to leave the house they loved so much. There was no

retirement home for them. Our children rode up and down the lift they put in when the stairs became too difficult for them to climb. My grandparents kept the hardwood floors covered with a hideous orange shag carpet. The wallpaper in the dining room is beyond ugly. But the windows are quaint and have a great view. My grandma stayed in the house for years after my grandfather had died, in the castle he had bought for her.

My grandmother died recently. I have been in the house since. It feels like the times I would go there as a child and find them out. They were usually off cruising to Fernie, the nearest town in which to shop, buying items they could return later, because if you bought something you could return it was a great excuse for a second trip. I would wait for them, watching TV, wearing my grandma’s jewels and eating popcorn twists. She always had a bag of popcorn twists in the hiding place.

It was empty in the house and kind of lonely until they would arrive full of stories and surprises.

Now, it feels a bit like they could burst through the door with ice cream from SuperValue, even though I know they are not coming back

My grandparents are gone. There is a for sale sign in the front yard. When the house is sold my heart will break a little, and another stage of missing them will start. I am past hoping for my grandfather’s voice or the feel of my grandmother’s so-soft paper-thin skin on my cheek when I kiss her goodnight.

The next step in missing is understanding that the place they once occupied is gone too — and we all must move on. I know it is only a house. The house is in the best location in town. It has a huge yard. It is only a matter of time before a family sees its charm. I know they will take out that awful carpet and strip the wallpaper. They will take down the rickety old picket fence that kept our children in the yard.

But I hope they fancy red roofs and like the smell of lilacs. I hope they have children who will like Easter egg hunts and who will decorate Christmas trees there for many years. I hope they make into a home again and they don’t mind when I slow down to look at that old Cape Cod. My heart is still in there.

Photo Credit

Cape Cod Style house

I ran into a friend the other day who looked frazzled. She had just delivered her parents to the hospital for another medical procedure for her mother, who has dementia and is failing. Her elderly father insists he can still take care of his lifelong mate at home. The family is beside themselves, as their mother recently fell and broke her arm and is increasingly unable to navigate the stairs in her home, yet their father refuses outside help and is determined to care for his wife on his own, despite the fact that he is now suffering from painful leg problems himself.

Other siblings and spouses are helping out, but the fact is that someone “on the ground” is needed, someone who can act as caregiver, social worker, and advocate, and who is able to be there nearly every day.

Another friend’s mother also fell recently and fractured her hip and was eventually admitted to a Rehab unit (the first and nearest one available) that they later discovered was rated as “below average.” Fortunately, again, the adult children and spouses were able to come from out of town and help their mother navigate the medical system and fight for better care and regular therapy.

After two weeks of this, they “sprung” their mother to her apartment in a seniors’ complex, where they have set up services and caregivers to assist her at home. Still, one of them is with her nearly all the time now, hoping to see improvements and healing before they leave their mother on her own again.

And here’s my own current dilemma. My 98-year-old father, who lives on the other side of the continent, was recently admitted to hospital. My brother and his wife, who are on the scene, were, as usual, there to help him through this, but it was a more than daily commitment: visiting him after work, meeting with medical staff, overseeing his progress and decisions about his care, and keeping the rest of the family informed of developments.

My dad deteriorated mentally while in hospital and Rehab, becoming more and more confused and agitated, and needing almost constant supervision. He was better when someone he knew was there, so of course this responsibility fell on the local family members, my brother and his wife, who already have health issues of their own to deal with.

My husband and I could have gone….he’s retired and I’m a self-employed freelancer, and would have gone, except that our eldest daughter is due to have her second baby any day now, and we just can’t leave that little family of three at the moment. They ran into unforeseen medical problems when their first baby was born, and needed extra help then, and, while we are all better prepared this time and feeling very positive, there are still many unknowns and we need to be here for them. I need to be here for my own peace of mind, frankly.

So, I’m caught. It’s the classic sandwich generation dilemma, when love, duty, and a sense of urgency pulls you to both the older and the younger generation. And it’s more and more prevalent in our long lived, geographically spread out, double income earning families of today. Guilt and love, perhaps in equal measure, propel us to try to be there for everyone, and it’s simply not possible.

It seems to me that the Baby Boomer generation, which has an answer for everything, needs to be imagining new ways of managing elder care, especially when we are at a distance from the elders we love and want to help. So, I’m currently searching for solutions—creative new ideas that are being tried, suggested, or imagined. It’s a societal dilemma that needs our combined brain, heart and financial power, applied innovatively to build a new model, sooner rather than later.

Photo Credit

“Star Weiss with her dad, her granddaughter Sophie and her daughter Holly: Experiencing the Sandwich Generation” Photo Courtesy of Star Weiss. All Rights Reserved.