Posted by Elizabeth
My grandfather, Gordon Wood Grant, died over Memorial Day weekend at the ripe age of 92. Following the small but dignified service that he was entitled to as a Veteran of Foreign Wars, I had a chance last Friday to share my memories of Grandpa Gordon amongst my little circle of family. I hope you enjoy the words I spoke to them, about rewriting a relationship, and how death rewrites life itself:
Gordon Grant didn’t like talking on the phone, and neither did I. Most of our phone conversations were exceedingly brief, punctuated by short jags of small talk and ragged bits of silence, reaching its awkward crescendo just minutes later. Perhaps it was because of our shared preference for outmoded forms of communication, as well as the distance between us – both in age and geography – that we struck up an old-fashioned correspondence. I don’t remember how or why it started, but the earliest letter, part of a modest stack that I keep carefully bound by a thick band of white satin ribbon in a box in my closet, dates December 21, 2004, a year after I had moved to the middle-of-nowhere Missouri to complete my graduate studies. It was the first time that I had lived so far from home and wouldn’t be in Seattle for Christmas, so he sent a letter in response to a Christmas card I had mailed his way a few weeks earlier:
Thanks for your nice card and voluminous update on your activities et cetera. A veritable tome. You’ve been a busy young lady, worthy of commendation. I hereby comply. Your Mom would be proud as punch; I hope you know we all are.
And so it began. Like most of the letters that followed over the next four years, there was no earth-shattering news to report. Instead, the pages – not fancy stationery but simple lined notebook paper – were filled with the details of his life, which he penned in graceful, yet straightforward, prose that seemed borne of an earlier time. The letters were always rife with apologies for not having more to report and amazement at my own busy life (“limited horizons, limited content,” he said), but I always looked forward to tearing open the envelope and reading about his accounts of an extraordinarily ordinary life.
A perennially favorite topic was his garden, a modest plot that he scratched out of the hard earth on the hillside behind his home. It was a far cry from the spread he maintained at his longtime residence in Burien, Washington, sprawling with proud stands of fruit trees, tangles of Concord grapevines, and flowers so big their heads lolled to one side in the afternoon sun. But judging from the way he wrote about it, you’d guess he lived squarely in the Garden of Eden.
Mother Nature is usually kind. The plants keep producing every year, the posies favor us with their elegance, the early bloomers are giving way after a good show.
What mattered most was that he had a place where he would dig his hands into the ground and nurture new life, one of the things he loved most.
He wrote often of his penchant for PBS; a “real treat” for him was settling down in the evening to listen to Andre Rien and his Dublin Orchestra. In the beginning there were reports of afternoon jaunts to the bowling alley and morning computer classes (“a lost cause,” in his words). He marveled at technology, maintaining a tenuous love/hate relationship with progress. He was glad for the digital photographs of my world travels that my dad would share with him, but once included a list of “You Know You Are Living in 2005 When…” jokes, of which modern technology was the eternal butt.
I know email and cellphones keep you quite well comprised of things here and about; still, I’d like to add my 25 cents worth.
And I was grateful that he did, because nobody wrote more eloquently about the simple pleasures of life than he.
Chris and I made a trip to ‘Pill Hill’ this AM…Now we’re home, looking at the last rays of sun, bathing our hillside of Scotch broom and evergreens, that are looking up at an azure blue sky. How’s that for a January weather report?
These are the moments – the thousands of sunrises and sunsets of our life – that pass most of us by. These are not details fit for the fast-paced age of digital communication; he knew that there were some things that only the slow act of letter writing could capture. Each letter always included an atmospheric update, not, I think, in an effort to make idle chit chat, but to connect me in the most tactile way to the world I was missing in Seattle, to paint a picture of the one he still inhabited.
Years ago, relatives seemed more important. With news from all over, and transportation convenient, I ‘spose we’re normally attracted to the ‘rainbow.’ C’est la vie.
Only now, with retrospect on my side, can I see that he might have been saying, in his own way, “Come visit more often. Why do your travels always have to take you so far from home?”
Without his letters, I never would have known how much he enjoyed a good meal. He would often spend half the letter discussing how and what he was eating, the success of a day hinging on what sustenance had been provided.
Today, Dave and Nancy came from Gig Harbor. We picked up Edell and went to Shari’s (Dave’s treat). He asked Edell what she’d like best, and can you believe, she said, ‘A good breakfast!’ So the five of us, in one car, headed to the restaurant. Each of us had something different. Edell had pancakes with strawberries and cream on the side – coffee, too. It was a treat to see how she enjoyed her meal.
It was clear that he savored these small acts of kindness, which fed not just his body, but his soul. He especially delighted in home-cooked fare, and forever looked forward to family gatherings in which handmade meals were served. The details of fleshy Easter hams and smoky Fourth of July barbecue danced across the page. Living halfway across the country, the best I could manage was sending a jar of gooseberry jam and homemade oatmeal cookies – amongst his favorite foods – along with a letter, every now and then.
A lifelong penny-pincher, he was notorious for sending letters in unused return envelopes. One letter arrived in the remittance envelope for Farmer’s Insurance, the “Have you moved lately?” box scratched out and, in its place, a note about the week’s average temperature (85 degrees). And yet, he would often enclose a check or a crisp $20 bill, encouraging me to buy “a plant, or whatever.” The real gifts, though, were the kernels of wisdom nestled in his words:
Do what you think is right, and you’ll probably be not far wrong.
We usually do a good job at something we enjoy.
Stay healthy.
‘A change is as good as a rest.’
He was quick to make keen observations about my temperament (“like your mom, you seem to thrive on excess”), and I think he worried that life might pass me by without me having taken it all in, for every letter closed with some version of the following phrase: “Keep doing good and try to enjoy it.” He knew as well as anyone the impermanence of life. As the years ticked by, his reports of the computer classes and bowling league were slowly replaced by a never-ending parade of doctor’s appointments, tests, x-rays, procedures, and surgeries, a dizzying carousel ride that seemed unlikely to stop spinning anytime soon.
I’m starting another round of doctor’s visits. Never knew how lucky I’ve been, wouldn’t mind some more of it. We’ll take ‘er as she comes, and hope to tell you all about it.
He candidly apprised me of both the successes and the failures with his treatments, and told me bluntly in one letter, “Everything wears out.”
It was with great sadness that I watched his handwriting deteriorate alongside his body. After a terrible fall that left him with equilibrium problems, letters would often take days to compose, which frustrated him to no end. “Getting dingy in the head is one thing; realizing it is demoralizing.” Although the letters stopped when he was no longer able to easily wield a pen, I kept writing. He was forever apologizing for not returning the favor in kind – the first rule of a successful correspondence – but I certainly wasn’t keeping tabs. I wrote letters because I wanted to. I wrote letters because I knew that, halfway across the country, someone was excited to see an Albuquerque postmark. Someone studied the carefully chosen stamp and saved the envelope. Someone was reading my words with care.
I may have given you the impression that our correspondence filled volumes. The truth is, the letters didn’t come very often, and they weren’t very long. In flipping through the thin stack, I was surprised to discover that they only total half a dozen, because although our letter writing campaign was waged during the waning years of his life, I came to know my grandpa through those six letters more completely than the previous 26 years combined. It was here that he revealed his thoughts and feelings about the things that mattered most to him: his beloved garden; his pleasure with a good meal; his wife, Edell, who he doted on; the family members who cared for him, each in their own way, in body, mind and spirit. In one of his final letters, as he realized that his broken-down body was getting the best of him, he said, “Cry me no tears. For 89 years – almost to the day – I was one lucky dog, in more ways than one.” That we should all be fortunate enough to feel the same way at the end of our lives.
The last time I talked to my grandpa was shortly after New Year’s, when he called to thank me for a batch of oatmeal cookies – and a letter – that I had sent his way. I was surprised to hear his voice on the other end of the line; most of our conversations were a result of my dad passing him the phone at the end of one of our talks, but he had called of his own accord. Unable to write, he expressed his appreciation by describing in great detail the attributes of a perfect oatmeal cookie: thick, chewy, and filled with ample raisins. Mine, he said, fit the bill, and he happily reported that he’d already eaten two of them. We talked for a few minutes, and then said goodbye. There wasn’t anything awkward about it.
We will feature our next Life in Pencil Moments of the Week next Friday, July 2. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, we’re compiling our readers’ contributions of moments, both big and small, in which you find yourself living life “in pencil.” Please email Anne or Elizabeth your submissions by Thursday, July 1.
“While I won’t be writing about life in pencil during the next four weeks, I will be intensely focused on living life in pencil. As the website slumbers I will be learning how to take on the challenges of motherhood, one day at a time. Not only will I be learning the logistics of my new life, from mastering midnight feedings to gaining competency in the art of diaper changing (it’s true: I’ve never changed a diaper), I will be learning the less tangible aspects of stepping into a new role. Cultivating a new identity takes time and energy, and I want to give my full attention to the important work of mothering that lies ahead. I want to savor these early days as I get to know my daughter, to fully absorb the lessons that she has to teach me. When I return in October, I hope to share my insights – hopefully deepened – about what it means to live life in pencil. Until then, I wish all of our dear readers a month filled with their own growth and development, no matter how big or how small.”
It probably goes without saying, but my September will look quite a bit different than Elizabeth’s. Nonetheless, it feels an important time for me to take a step back, and channel my energy into some new experiences, and exciting challenges. September marks the start of the school year—a time I move at full throttle. Students return. I train my staff. There are ‘welcome picnics’, and a welcome coolness in the air. And this year—for the first time in a few years—I’ll add teaching back to my professional life. This is an experience I’ve been wanting, and for which I’m now discovering some pent-up nerves. I’ll attempt to wade through those nerves, and all the feelings of incompetence. And I’ll ride the rush of excitement I find when standing in front of a classroom, hoping to connect with college minds. Wish me luck.”
