Picking Up Roots

It is funny how death and time skew our memories, and allow us to create qualities in those we didn’t know well. When I was seventeen, my grandfather, Pap, died. For most of my life I had seen him as a crotchety old man, never happy, always bitter. He often complained about how unfair life was, and how it didn’t offer many fair shakes. At the same time, he seemed to shake life as hard as he could. 

            In the two plus years I had worked for him I found him to be more than what I had thought he was. He was the caretaker of the Berwick cemetery, Mt. Hope – I thought it was strange to have the word ‘hope’ in the name of a place holding such sadness. When he passed – an ugly death caused by the two-pack a day unfiltered Camel habit he had never attempted to kick – I was devastated, or at least that’s how I thought I was supposed to feel. In reality, I didn’t feel much, and that concerned me.

            When a family member passes – one who wasn’t abusive or cruel – you should feel sad. I was sad, or so I thought, but my grandfather hadn’t loved me. For the bulk of my life I felt like a burden to him, and though he viewed me as a mistake. At best, I think he saw me as a piece of ammunition he could use against my mother. This brought him great joy due to the constant battle being fought between the two; it’s cause rooted in some piece of history I was not privy too.

            I was the trump card he played when he was down, which was not infrequent. His eyes would sparkle with mean mirth when he would say something to the effect of “the boy is evidence of your inability to make good decisions,” which would cause my mother’s eyes to flash with anger, as my grandmother would tell him to hush and my face would burn with embarrassment. Before we lived with my grandparents, if we were visiting, we would leave right after that jibe.

            As time has subsided, I’ve forgotten most of the hostility and resentment surrounding my grandfather. He’s been dead almost 25 years and my mind doesn’t have the room to carry anger for someone so long past. Death and time: the perfect combination for forgetting.

            I remember more the two plus years I spent working for him. They are happier memories, which no doubt confuses the memory of how I felt at his death. I will always see the mirth in his eyes as he sat smoking in the backhoe asking how the view was every time I was six feet down in a grave, and I can still hear the scratchy laughter as he said it was a preview of what was to come.

He still carried bitterness and anger, but when I do remember them, I hear them in the context of the lessons he imparted. Though I don’t think they were intentional, they were well learned. 

            He taught me hard work, stubbornness, tough love (yes, love) and the importance of doing good work. I learned how to swear and how to blend in as one of the guys. The two-and-a-half summers I worked for him were the best summers of my life.

I am on intimate terms with death. I always have been. We know each other well. I think about death and dying often. When I was younger, I used to think about dying and wonder who would come to my funeral. I’d lie awake at nights wondering who would miss me. Most evenings I couldn’t come up with many names aside from my mother.

            I’ve thought about death much more as I’ve aged. Failure after failure has left me feeling more useless, more alone, wondering what was the point of all this. It’s been the voice of my mother, her positivity, her love that has brought me back from a brink she didn’t know I was on.

            I didn’t know my father. He died before I was born. My mother told me he an important man in our town, well respected by all those who lived in my hometown of Berwick. He died in one of the fires in the old mills. Mom never explained what he was doing there. When I asked she gave vague answers. I loved my mother so I took her words as the truth. It wasn’t until much later in life that I found it odd she wouldn’t tell me his name or that she didn’t have any pictures of him.

            Along with death, I’ve thought a great deal about my father. I’ve spent hours daydreaming about who he might have been. I always pictured him as a big man, broad through the shoulders and chest, with thick arms. My mother says I resemble him a great deal, with my dark hair and crooked nose at the top of a tall wiry build. 

            I pictured him happy as he and I walk down Main Street in Berwick. He would nod to people in the storefronts we passed, and the people would tip their caps or smile back, eager to have his attention, even for a moment. His eyes were steel blue, sharp, seeing everything and so piercing; no one could look him in the eye.

            My eyes are a softer blue and mother says they are hers; the best trait she gave me. She told me my father’s eyes were hazel and sad. When she’s told me about him in the past, a sad smile takes over her face as she recounts his eyes, “they were what sucked me in; those sad deep pools I wanted to dive into and soak up the problems and hurt hidden there.”

            I couldn’t see my father as sad. He was too great a man, too powerful to feel sadness. My dreams showed him having everything he could want in the world. There was no room for sadness. But then, those were a child’s dreams.

            Death cannot be defeated. Its career record is unblemished. The adage about death and taxes being the only certainties in life are true. When someone close to you dies, you can’t help but think on mortality: yours, theirs, and others who are close to you. It’s a natural second step after the passing of another.

            When Santiago Holmes passed, I wasn’t sad. I didn’t feel anything. I’m not sure if it was my fault or his, or if fault even needed to be placed on anyone’s doorstep. Our last words on this earth were spoken in anger, and were spoken over 20 years ago.

            I know his passing relieved my mother so in that regard I was happy. I know it sounds crass, but so many deaths are long, drawn out processes, beginning with a diagnosis and not ending until some years later. When the end does come, it is a blessing for all involved. I think the multiple years it took for Santiago to deteriorate and go took a toll on my mother, so she was able to find her own peace with his departure.

            My mother is and was such a caring person. She will stretch herself thin, to the point of tearing, to take care of another soul in need. I should know she raised me by herself while caring for her parents and working two jobs. I, in my own selfish ways, cannot be bothered to pour a glass of water for myself if someone is nearby who can do it for me.

            I admire my mother’s capacity for care, and am ashamed to say I have taken advantage of it whenever it seemed prudent and more often when it was not. 

            Just because she cares, I don’t want any confusion, and you thinking she is soft, or lacking in spine. She has a will of iron. If someone is being cruel, or abusing her sympathies, she will cut them off at the knees. On occasion, I go without water because I can read her moods.

            What I valued most about her – aside from her being my mother – was her consistency. Her dual abilities to care and be firm made her fair, and the most pragmatic and reasonable person I have known. They also made her caring for Santiago Holmes the most irregular behavior I had seen her take part in in my 40 years on this earth.