I dream about Poland.
It’s silly actually, as I’ve never been. Yet, every now and again, I still have this dream that I’ve had for the better part of fifteen years. I’ve pieced together an entire dream in my head, from photos online, random movies and old stories my grandfather told me as a child. I dream of walking down streets I’ve never walked on. Seeing buildings that I’ve only seen in photographs. I dream of meeting family somehow who I well know doesn’t exist. It’s a pipe dream. This I know.
Yet? I still want to go. I want to see the world that my father’s family escaped from. I want to walk down the streets that my great-grandma walked on at my age. I want to search and see if there are any records of them being there. In a way, I want to know where I come from. On my mothers side, every detail is available from the one enslaved boy who came over in the time of the Mayflower. My fathers side is a big blank slate. It appears my family just came into being when they reached Ellis Island.
I’m 31 years old. I’ve had this dream for 15 years. I’ve wanted to go to Poland, even longer than that. Today is the day I start making that a reality. Heck, it may take me five years to save the money for the kids and I to go…but that’s okay. I just opened a new savings account. It’s my Poland fund. Between now and then, I have to figure out exactly where I should go. I have to find a way to know what our last name was before they changed it. I don’t know exactly how to do this yet, but I’ll get there eventually.
One day, I’ll walk the streets of Poland. One day.
I’d considered not calling him. I thought about just showing up. Yep. Just showing up at his work and saying, hi dad. It’s been a few years. I was in town and I thought I’d take you out to lunch.
The downfall to that, is that he has two offices and I only knew where one was. Also? What if he wasn’t there that day? Mostly, I didn’t want to call because then I could back out last second, if I felt like it. Yet, I was there, in his area. I was already planning on seeing my brother that same afternoon. So I called, after a mighty shove in that direction from a certain person. She knew why I wasn’t wanting to call. Because she knows everything. Ha.
I did though. I called. Hi dad, I’m in town. Can I come take you to lunch in a few days. Of course he said. Then he hung up. Shock. I shocked my dad. He called back a half hour later. Wait, what? Are you really in town? Yes, yes I am. Oh okay, good.
I wanted to see him, yet I want to be sure I didn’t see his wife. This was the only way I knew how to accomplish that.
That morning, I got up and drove over a bridge and had coffee with a great friend. Seeing her helped calm my anxiety a bit. Or at least keep it at bay for two hours. Before I knew it my coffee date was over and I was on my way to see my dad.
Two and a half years. I hadn’t seen him in two and a half years. What do you say to someone after that long? What will he look like? What will we talk about? What if she shows up? Can I go home now? Maybe I can call and say, APRIL FOOLS. Yeah. It’s the 18th, that won’t work. How can I have possibly thought this was a good idea?
But then I was there. Parked in the rain, across from his shop. Suddenly I was walking in, saying hey old man to my father who had his back to me. Suddenly I was hugging him and it was all okay.He looked just how he did last time, albeit a bit too skinny and with a bit less hair.
A month ago yesterday I had lunch with my dad. For two hours, I had his undivided attention, for the first time in forever. We discussed the kids, his retirement being pushed back a few years, my PCOS diagnosis, his lungs, random relatives. For the first time in years, we didn’t talk about the weather, his cars, or computers. Which was dam refreshing. I promise, talking about cars has never been my thing. For two hours, we sat in a little Greek restaurant, just us.
It was nice, yet a bit surreal.
I have a photo. Proof that it happened. A photo of my dad and I, the first one in years. The proof that I didn’t imagine it.
It could be years before we have a real conversation again. We could never have a real conversation like that again. I have no way of knowing. I am glad that a month ago, I made a phone call.
(I also got a lovely birthday gift from my step-mom…a bubble gum pooping chicken. Yeah, I gave that to a six year old boy, who found it hysterical.)
He loves to spring the hard stuff on me at random times. My brother, he’s good at that.
We’d been hanging out at his house for a few hours. I’d played with his dog and kitties. My step-sister had come and gone. We were getting ready to go out to eat when he said it. So…I know more about our brother. Which brother I asked? (Legit question. As we have a brother that we don’t see (his family is his drugs) and a step-brother monster that I choose not to see.) The brother we have never known, was his answer.
*silence*
Oh that one. The one my dad helped create, yet never cared a second for. The one my step-mom said had been given up for adoption at birth by his mother, in Sweden no less. That brother. Huh. For a minute I considered just changing the subject. Of course, my curiosity never lets me do that. Okay dude, tell me.
What she (step-mom) told us was complete bull crap. He wasn’t adopted. His mother kept him.
I am not surprised by any of those things actually. You’d think I would have been. But no. I know my step-mom is a liar. Even in a drunken rampage of everyone’s emotions she can still pick and choose what she says.
But then he dropped the bomb. He lived in the Valley his entire life.
For those who don’t know? The Valley is the San Fernando Valley in California. It’s a large part of Los Angeles. Mere miles from where I grew up. Say 15 at most. I have relatives who live in The Valley. I spent a lot of time there as a child. Apparently my little brother lives there. Always has.
Here’s the thing though. My bro and I? We’ve (since finding out ten years ago) always wondered how we could find him. Now, we know where he lives. We know people who knew his mother back then and all logic tells us that they know her now. At least they could tell us her name and we could search her out.
I’ve spent ten years trying to remember her name, as I do remember her. She was a passing figure in my dad’s life for a month or two when I was five years old. Yet, I can’t seem to remember.
We talked about this the entire walk to dinner. We talked about finding him. About knowing him. About the probability that he’s the spiting image of my dad. We wondered how tall he might be. If he has other siblings. What he’s done with his life. All valid questions.
Except for one thing. He’s 25 years old. (Or maybe 24. Hard to know exactly.) He’s never come looking for our dad or for us. There is a very good possibility that he was raised by a man who he believes to be his dad.
While we know that in time we could get the right people drunk and find out his mother’s name and locate him…the true question is, how do we ruin someone’s life like that? Just because we want to know him, doesn’t mean he’d want to know us.
We have no answers. We may never do a thing. Maybe just knowing he was raised in the same area as we were, is enough. That he wasn’t given up in Sweden. Maybe knowing that he’s alive and could easily locate us if he wanted too, is enough.
I know how to be a good sister to my bro. We were raised together. I know what he means when he says something odd. I know he’s the only person more stubborn than me and that’s saying a lot. I know that when he calls me late at night, he’s lonely. I know that he’s one of the hardest working men in this world. I know that he tells everyone he doesn’t want kids, but will make an amazing dad one day. I know him. He knows me. We are very close.
We decided to sit on this decision for awhile. Maybe a few years. We both said, we’d let it go for now. Until we have an answer to the question, if it were us, would we want to meet us? Would we want two adults showing up and claiming to be long lost siblings, if we’d never been told our dad wasn’t our real dad? If we knew nothing, would we want two strangers ruining the life we thought we had?
Until we know, we wait.
WARNING: I need you guys to know something before you read this. I am okay. I really am. I’ve started writing these things down, as a way to get them out of my head. As a way to try and process why I am the way I am. For me, writing helps. Writing is better than therapy. It’s almost like a way to release some of this. As I’m dealing with some things that have come up lately, there may be more posts like this. I’ll try to post one and then post other things before posting another. Please know, I am okay.
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I am six. It is my second memory of her. It is morning and there are cartoons on in the background. She asks which cereal we each want and I choose Coco Pebbles. I see the chocolate milk on the counter and ask if I can have that on my cereal. She asks if I do that at home and I say, oh my mom always let’s me. Why I had to say that, I’ll never know. Maybe I just thought it sounded good. Maybe I wanted brown milk.
My dad comes into the room and asks what in the world I’m eating and she tells him what I said. He laughs and then says, she’s never even had sugar cereal, her mom would freak out at this breakfast. I hide my face guilty in my hands. She laughs it off.
She makes me pay for it later.
Years later she still tells the story at times. How funny that she believed a silly lie from a six year old child. She leaves out the scalding hot bath and the clumps of hair she yanked from my head, in brushing it that night. Yep. She always leaves that part out.
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I get sick and throw up in bed one night. I may have been seven. I don’t remember the details of what she said and did. I just remember being forced to clean up the mess myself. I remember bathing myself. I remember trying to change sheets myself. I remember setting a beach bucket by my pillow myself. I remember crying myself back to sleep. Wishing for my mommy.
Any time I get sick after that, I go back to my moms. I tell my dad, I’m sick and need mommy. He takes me home. Somehow I think he understands.
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She makes a scene one night at a restaurant. We get sent to the car any time we act out in public but she can scream at my dad at full volume. His offense? He’d come and picked my mom and us up earlier in the day when my moms car broke down on the highway. He’s a mechanic. This is what he does. I should have left my children stranded on the side of the 101 because they were with her. YES she screams.
I cry because I picture us next time stranded for weeks. She sees me and starts freaking out even more. Stop crying you little brat she screams. He loves you best, he’d never do that to you. He loves me best huh? He didn’t stop her from grabbing my arm and shaking me to stop crying.
The manager of the restaurant kindly requests us to leave.
At seven I learn to zone out and pretend to not be there every time she screams.
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For every birthday until I was ten she bought me the most beautiful dresses from Nieman Marcus. Oh they were so beautiful. I could always imagine myself twirling in them. I never got to though. She’d send them home to my moms house. My mom would get all pissed off realizing that the dress was always two sizes too small.
It was all for show. To show my mom what she could do, because she had money. My mom would try to go and exchange the dress. But no, yet again it was out of season and long gone. The replacement dresses were never the same.
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I get scared in the line for Space Mountain and refuse to go on the ride. It’s really no big deal, the Disney guy tells me. Happens all the time. I stand with him, until the rest of them get off the ride. She belittles me to everyone for the entire day, yet refuses to look at me. You know, lots of kids are scared of roller coasters at nine years old.
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She is very careful what she does. It’s all underhanded. She’d never let my dad see it. She love to have a row with my mom, but she wouldn’t do things that would leave a mark. Or not a mark one can see.
Sometimes she won’t brush my hair for a week. Sometimes she yanks it out. After a time, I make my mom teach me to brush my own hair.
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Get your nose out of that stupid book and pay attention to what is happening in the real world. Why would I do that, I said to her, this world sucks. I am ten and we are on vacation. She is shocked in the moment, because I rarely spoke back to her. In fact I had learned to speak to her as little as possible.
The next morning every book I’d brought on our two week trip is gone. She yells at me for not paying better care to my stuff. Because of that, she takes away my snacks for four days and my Game Boy and Walkman for the remainer of the trip.
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I am equally scared of her and somehow still want her approval. At times she is very nice to me. At times she compliments me. She likes me. She buys me things. She takes me to the store, just her and I. Sometimes when crossing a street, she holds my hand. At times she tells people I am her daughter, instead of his kid. I know it won’t last, it never does. Yet it keeps me from hating her for years and years.
I need that approval. I try and earn it. I get good grades. I am in general, a pretty dam good kid. I volunteer to read to the boys, to help them learn to read. I always do dishes there and clean up after myself. I never back talk or cause trouble. None of it really matters.
When she’s nice, she’s nice. When she’s evil, she’s evil. It can and does change in seconds.
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It’s the summer of our big US adventure. 18 states I believe. We saw 18 states in a month. I’m twelve. This had actually been a better vacation than most. Her daughter was allowed to bring a friend. Paula. Sweetest girl my step-sister was ever friends with. Her dad had died suddenly that March, so we invited her on vacation with us. She needed distraction. Her mother needed some time. Paula being there made it easier for me. Everything is about appearances, you see. Appearances for appearances sake, kept me safe that summer. Safe from her. Safe from her monster of a son.
Yet one day, I get my period. First time ever. I remember that a few years prior she made a big deal of her daughter becoming a woman. I tell her and she smacks me. I’m lying and I just want attention. Don’t I know that nothing is about me this year? Suck it up was her response. I spend my video game money buying tampons. Thank god I read instructions well.
The following month, I am at home with my mom. Hey mom, guess what? I got my period!!! She is so happy that she cries. My baby, a woman. She buys me a phone for my bedroom, with my very own line. We celebrate.
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My step-mother hates me. She always has, she always will. I am a reminder that my father had a life before her. I am also a girl and she’s not fond of girls. I have little to no contact with her anymore. I rarely speak to my father. It’s sad, but it’s better for me.
She’s a functioning alcoholic. I’m not saying that to make excuses. It’s just fact. She’s a hateful horrible alcoholic. She takes good care of my dad though. This will sound really bad, but in my head I think, if she dies before him…which she will, as he’s not a drunk…maybe then I can have a relationship with my dad.
I miss him. I miss my dad. Every day.
I have never been one of those, stay home to watch TV people. Sure I have shows that I love. I always have. But even in pre-DVR days, I’d just set up my VCR to record a show. Remember those? VHS’s? Yeah, me neither. Ha. I’ve never cared if someone ruined a show for me. Hell, I read the end of books before the beginning and I ask about a movie before I’ve seen it. It just never mattered that much to me.
My one exception, to this day, was Charmed. I loved it. I watched it from episode one, for eight seasons. I stayed home to watch it. Something which made Logan laugh. I’d even set it to record each week. One, so I could watch it again. Two, just in case something came up. A sick baby. A long day at work. It happened. That show was my kryptonite and everyone knew it.
It was silly and un-realistic, but I loved it.
One night, say around season four, I missed it. I’d been working 14 hour days that week. I hadn’t seen Morgan in days, except to kiss her as I left and smooth her baby hair at night, long after she’d been asleep.
I’d recorded it, so I turned it on and got in bed to watch. 20 minutes in, the screen when blue. OMG LOGAN!!!!!!!! IT MESSED UP!!!!! The blue screen of death, the blue screen of death. HELP.
What am I supposed to do, he asked? It’s a TV show? I can’t do anything.
I cried. No joke. I cried. About a TV show. About nine zillion other things. About the stress of work and missing my baby. From lack of sleep. I cried for ten minutes, the whole time a blue screen was still running on my TV.
Yeah, then the show came back on. Logan, as a joke, had been in the room as the show was on. At a commercial, he’d stopped the recording, fast forwarded the tape ten minutes and then hit record again. All I missed was two commercials.
No other show has even come close to making me stay home to watch it. After that point, I stopped staying in to watch that one. I did however smack Logan upside the head for that one.
All I can say, is thank god for DVR’s. So….what about you all? Ever have a show that you stayed home to watch?
It’s late at night. We are in bed. Holding hands. Pondering quietly the reality that has smacked us squarely in the face. Neither of us speaks for nearly an hour. I listen to him breath. I play the evening over and over again in my mind. I wonder to myself, is this real. God, I hope this is real.
Finally he speaks. Well that happened fast, didn’t it?
Yeah, I guess it did, I responded.
So….we’re going to be parents then? Dam that’s rad.
Yeah, it is, huh?
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We were on vacation. 1992 maybe. I’d of been twelve that summer. Driving through Oklahoma. We’d stopped at Sonic, which he’d only mentioned about 73 times that day. Sonic. Jalapeno burgers. Cherry limeade. You could almost see it dancing in his eyes. His idea of heaven, if he were one to believe in such things.
We stopped at the first one we saw. We all ordered huge drinks and burgers. Chili cheese fries to share. We sat outside the car in the humid summer heat. The radio in the car was on. Turned to a silly country station, that he never would have normally made us listen too. Maybe it was Oklahoma that did it too him. Maybe it was Sonic. Who knows. My dad is an odd guy.
The moment was over before it really began.
He jumped up and started grabbing food and shoving it in the car in seconds. I didn’t recognize that look in his eyes. Get in the car now, he said. His voice was raised. He meant business. The man rarely raised his voice. We all got in the car. He drove away like a bat out of hell. He didn’t speak for 30 minutes.
We were all silent as well. No one said a thing, even though he was driving us back in the direction we’d just come from. Considering there were five of between 10 and 14 years old, this was a strange occurrence.
Eventually my step-mom broke the silence. What happened? Tornadoes, was his response. Headed our direction. The radio said tornadoes. More than one. Never again will I deal with tornadoes. Give me an earthquake any day.
It would have been funny, except it really wasn’t. On a vacation once, in Texas, my dad almost lost my mom because of tornadoes. She happened to be out shopping and she nearly died in a storm drain. It was about six months before they got pregnant with me. The town my grandparents lived in was over a third gone, after the tornadoes that day. Three major ones.
We will be going around Oklahoma today, was all he’d say.
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Family dinner. My family. His family. We’d ordered in. Mexican food. What? It wasn’t like I knew how to cook. Our new condo. It was the first time we’d had everyone there. There wasn’t enough seats for everyone, so a lot of people ended up sitting on the floor.
They believed it was to celebrate the condo. They’d brought us gifts. As we finished opening them, I got up and said, there is actually two more. Hold on one second. I went into our bedroom and came out with two gifts.
White satin wrapping. Purple and green ribbon. I remember that I’d spent an hour at some specialty shop in Beverly Hills, finding the prettiest paper I could find. I even made my friend Kate wrap them for me, because I wanted it to be perfect. One gift for his parents, one for my mom. Two picture frames.
Our butter bean in a frame. Ten weeks. Her first fuzzy photo. The frames said first grandchild.
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Same vacation. 1992. We’d been in Albuquerque the day before and had gone to Water World. I’d managed to step on a lit cigarette butt and had a blister the size of a fist on my foot. I have always been known for this type of thing. They should have just named me clumsy.
We were camping in Carlsbad. Had been swimming the night before. Every one told me to pop that blister, but I decided limping around was a better way to go. I didn’t want to miss walking down Carlsbad Caverns. I knew if I popped it, I’d not want to walk for days. See, I’d heard a rumor the night before, that Mario Lopez would be filming something at the bottom of the caves the next day. I wanted to meet him. Oh how I loved Saved by the Bell.
I was determined. I didn’t care how much it hurt. I did it anyway. Not because I cared about a silly cave. National monument? Who cares about that? I was twelve. I’d of rather been in a mall. Or at home, spending my days boogie boarding with my friends.
I could have cared less that it had an actual cafeteria at the bottom. I didn’t want to see bats. Or ride the weird elevator back to the top. Nope. I did it too see some cute famous boy.
Saw him too. Somewhere I even have a signed autograph. Totally worth the foot pain.
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I have some things I need to tell you all he said. People kept talking. He stood there in front of us until everyone stopped. It only took a minute or two. He had that ability. He had a presence. He wasn’t super tall. He was rather skinny. He didn’t raise his voice. He just had a presence.
When he had our attention, he said: so I need to be honest with you all. This year, this class, all of you, will be the last children I ever teach. At the end of the year I will retire.
I remember being shocked. He was the most loved teacher in our school. He was old, but not old. My mom now says, he was only in his late 40′s at the time. He was tough and real and never took shit from anyone. But the entire school wanted to be in his class. The staff loved him, all the parents loved him, he was that guy. The guy that you hope knows your name. He taught fifth grade. We were ten years old. I remember wanting to be in his class from second grade on.
He continued talking.
This year is my last year teaching, because I have a disease called ALS. Also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I am one of Jerry’s kids. He explained to us his disease. Explained how it would debilitate him slowly. That it attacks your muscles and would eventually attack his heart and lung muscles. He explained what being one of Jerry’s kids meant. Most of us sat there and cried. I found out this summer, he told us. They’d been testing me for various things for a year. We figure I’ve had it for up to five years.
The kid next to me raised his hand. He was the morbid kid. I’d swear there was one in every class. Jeremy was ours. The kid who read Stephen King Novels at recess. We all made fun of him for that. His death and dying weird fascination, I think made us all nervous. (Then again, he’s a heart surgeon now and probably makes more money than the rest of the class, so um Jeremy? I’m sorry. Yay Stephen King novels at ten years old.) That day though, he asked the question we all wanted to ask. Are you dying?
Yes, was the answer. But you know, we are all dying. One day, we all die. I’m a lot older than any of you. It’s just god’s plan. I guarantee you though, I won’t die on you this year.
I could have stopped teaching, he said. But I thought to myself, if I have three good years left, which is what they tell me, I want one more year to influence you all. I want one more year to do some good in the world. To teach you. Teaching has always been my favorite thing to do. I will do it for one more year and then I will travel with my wife and children for however long I am able.
I picked each of you by hand. The 22 of you in this class need to know, that I hand picked you. They don’t normally let us do that, pick kids ourselves. Normally what happens is your teachers from last year get together and place you in the following years classes. Yet this year they let me. Each of you is here for a reason. You don’t have to know why, just know I wanted the honor of teaching you all.
Then he answered some questions, explained to us that all of our parents would be in the class at various times helping out and then he moved onto our math lesson. Oh wait, one more thing he said…..sometimes I can’t feel my boogers. So y’all just tell me if you see them okay? We all laughed. The fact alone was that a teacher just said boogers out loud. It was funny. It broke the ice. He in one sentence went from being the guy who is dying, back to being our silly teacher.
Mr. A was a great teacher. He was insane though. Or insane to a ten year olds mind. He made us learn Square Dancing. One day a week (the day without art, gym or computer class) for the entire year, he made us Square Dance. He was convinced we may need it later in life. It’s very popular don’t you know? Square Dancing. Snort. We never got to pick out own dance mate. He did it for us. Square Dancing at ten years old. It was torture.
He made us sit in desk groups of four. Two boys and two girls to a group. If you were a girl, you had a boy next to you and across from you. Every few weeks, we’d come in on a Monday and he’d of completely rearranged them again. We’d get to play the fun game of, find your desk again.
Once a week a parent came in and did some type of project with us. My mom did paper mache somethings. I can’t remember what, but I remember doing it. Others did science projects, cooking class, music….one woman even tried to teach us yoga.
Mr. A threw major Halloween, Christmas and Valentines day parties. We learned how to make Latkes for Hanukkah. We made kites for Chinese New Year. He thought any holiday deserved to be celebrated, so we celebrated them all. We’d learn about it one week and then the next week, all extra activities would be about it.
He took us, along with a ton of parents, camping for three days at the end of the year. He said it was good life training for us city kids. We needed to learn about dirt, trees and rocks. No other class or teacher did that. We all raised the money for this ourselves. We ran bake sales. We washed cars. It was a major class project.
If we went and told him a boy was teasing us, he’d say, awwww he’s just sweet on you, you go on now and tell him thank you. Ha. We never got sympathy on that.
He told us stories of “back in the day”. He could have written for Bill Cosby. Seriously.
He made us act out the stories we read. He made each of us, read out loud and take turns writing things on the board.
He didn’t tolerate back-talking, name calling, fighting or the petty drama that ten year old girls tend to thrive on, in his class.
He knew all of our parents and siblings by name.
He was a great teacher. I strove to get all A’s in his class, even though I had trouble with math and spelling that year. We all strove for greatness in his class. Not because he was sick, but because he believed in us. He believed we could be great. He believed in us. In turn, we believed in him. I’ve never since had that great of a teacher. I’ve had quite a few good ones, but none that I’d call great.
He did exactly what he said. He taught us for that last year and then he took off in an RV for nearly 18 months with his wife and two grown children. He lived in my neighborhood, so I saw him a few more times once they got back. Each time he looked more like an 80 year old man, than a man around 50. When he passed away, halfway through my 8th grade year, 700 people showed up at his funeral. 700 people. Family, friends, teachers, students old and young, showed up to pay their respects. They literally closed school that day.
20 years later and I remember him and that year, more than any school year prior. The man left his mark.
i hate having x-rays. not because it hurts in the way they want me to move, although it does. no, mostly because i’m afraid of what they might find. what other, old, not healed right things will they find.
first time it happened i was 19. i was playing street hockey on roller blades and fell. i put my arms out to save my face. logan was working, so my mom took me to the er.
broken wrist. wouldn’t have been a big deal…except for the pain, save for his next words. when did you do this before he asked? my mom said, oh she hasn’t. no, he said this is a big break right here. one that didn’t heal right. see, he said as he showed us on the x-ray.
i knew when it was from. i played it down that day. oh it wasn’t that bad. it was the summer when i was 12. the summer you took that six week seminar in seattle. the one where you left us with dad.
truth? i didn’t sleep for a month because of the pain. i tripped and fell on a vacation. my step-mom deemed me a whiner. said it wasn’t that bad…its barely bruised or swollen, she claimed. ignored me as i cried and protected it against my chest for a month.
second time was after my car accident. x-ray of my right ankle showed old injuries. two this time. mom was there then too. oh when i was nine i remember using crutches for a few weeks. you were on your honeymoon. remember that summer? we were with dad that time too.
i didn’t say that it was painful and i’d been injured by the evil step-brother. that his wrist was in a cast, because of a hockey injury or something else. that she had pain pills for her precious son, but was mean when i asked for advil. i didn’t say that they bitched about the cost of getting me crutches at the drug store. made me feel like i injured myself on purpose. like my injury was taking away or competing with her son’s injury and pain.
i remember a broken toe that she duct taped, when i kicked a wooden chair. i was 10 that time. i had to write 500 sentences about not running in the house.
i remember being told that if id lose weight i wouldn’t have broken my fat ass. that time i’d injured my tailbone, falling on the beach, trying to hit a stupid volleyball. we won’t even go into the next 4 weeks of jokes made at my expense after that. i believe i was 17 that year.
what i know is that i don’t like x-rays anymore. they make me panic. i waited four days longer than i should have to get one this time. i sat in pain for four days longer than i should, bcause i fear the x-rays.
because if i remember all of that, what have i forgotten?
Even over the smell of the food, I smelled him as he walked in the door. You don’t think you will ever forget the smell of a man once they are gone forever, but sadly one day you do. Until it walks into a restaurant and gets in line behind you. I breathed deeply twice. I bit my lip to stop the tears, as I turned around to see who it was that smelled like that.
He was probably about 70 years old. Little bit shrunken, like older people get. Nice looking guy, glasses, old guy cap on his head. But that smell, he smelled just like my grandpa. I just smiled at him and turned back around. The baby cooed at him once, possibly waved, as it is his favorite thing to do. I am pretty sure he said something to Harrison, but I couldn’t tell you what.
I wish I could have asked him what cologne he used. Wouldn’t have mattered though, as I know it was a combination of things. His Cologne, Zest soap, Listerine, Certs breath mints. Grandpa; he smelled like grandpa.
************
Where are we going this week, he’d ask me. Where do you think silly, I’d say. Let me guess? How about Paulie’s, you know Paul would love to see you? No grandpa, no Mexican food, Hamburger Hamlet. Oh how could I have not known that, he’d say, sighing.
Every other Tuesday night for two years, that was my dinner choice. Every time, we had the same conversation. Their hamburgers and fries were to die for, their shakes couldn’t be beat; but best yet, they let you draw on the table. At five years old, there is nothing better than drawing on the table while on a date with your grandpa.
You know, Melissa Annie, he’d say; one day you are going to want to go to a real restaurant and then I will be the one wanting to draw on the table and we always have to come here.
Grandpa, even when I am eighty-ninety-two years old, I will always want to come here.
************
I was six, maybe seven the first time I got fresh with him. You better watch it girl, or I will snatch you bald headed. He growled a bit as he said it. I apologized instantly and he was fine after that.
What that exactly meant, I never knew. But he said it too all of the grandchildren when they got smart mouthed or said or did something rude. What I did know was I didn’t want to know what it meant.
I heard someone else say that their grandfather used to say that. Not sure where I was, nor who said it, but it didn’t bother me. I bet their grandfather didn’t growl when he said it.
*************
At ten, he taught me how to shift the gears in his car when he was driving. As I got better at it, he’d say every time I got into his car, you shifting or am I? Well that was a silly question to ask a ten year old. I always shifted. He’d tell me when and I got to where I could do it without even looking.
At twelve, he took me into a school parking lot on a Sunday and let me have my first attempt at driving. You tell your dad about this and I’ll snatch you bald headed, he’d say.
Grandpa if I told dad about this, he’d make you stop. I want to drive, this is between you and me.
Not many twelve year old children can say they know how to drive a stick shift.
************
In the summer, when I was fourteen, I ran away from home. I tried to go to Mexico with some friends. We had parental issues, or so we thought in the moment. Everything would be better in Mexico. At the border, they made us call someone to come and get us and I called grandpa. He drove the two and a half hours to get us. Let us have it too, how dumb we were, how badly it could have ended, how disappointed he was in me. That last one hurt the most.
He told us all that you can’t run away from small problems and you shouldn’t run away from the big ones. Told us our secret was safe with him this time, but next time he’d not be so nice. I never forgot his disappointment that day.
**********
At sixteen, I made an off handed comment about the AC not working great in my bedroom. I came home the next day from school and he was installing a ceiling fan in my bedroom. My mom just shook her head at me and said, I wish I had someone who would drop everything for me like this.
*********
From him, I get my love of good red wine, fresh seafood and great salsa; the joy of storytelling, reading a good book, the love of movies and the ability to cut a person down with my words. That last one, he could have kept.
**********
He told me stories about flying in the Korean war. He told me about growing up with his brother Paul, how Paul never matured past the age of three, even though he lived to be twenty-seven. He told me about the mistakes he made in parenting when my dad and his siblings were kids. He told me about working as a radio guy back in the early sixties. Told me about his granddad, who took them (his daughter and grandchildren: my grandpa and his baby brother Paul who were six and one at the time) and escaped Poland right before it was invaded by the Germans. He told me how much I reminded him of his mom; my great-grandma Annie.
************
The best compliment I ever got in my life was from him. I can’t share it, it’s too sentimental, but I never forgot it and I never will.
***********
He was a grouchy old guy, but he always had time for me. When email was new, he and I both had an email account. I used to get emails that had “Yippee, Squeee, Happy” as the subject. That was how much he loved email. It was a joyous event for him each time.
***********
He’s a grouchy, pain in the ass curmudgeon and I’m never speaking to him again, I said to my dad on the phone. I was 18 years old and had just had the worst lunch date in my life with Grandpa. I’d told him that Logan and I were getting married and he spent the next half hour telling me how I shouldn’t do that, I’d forever regret it; before I finally got up and left the restaurant.
I called him an old fool as I left and told him he was not welcome at my wedding. And Daddy, I mean it, he’s not welcome. I was seething as I said this to my dad.
Oh you don’t mean that, honey. You are angry, you have every right to be angry, but you have to see his side of view.
No, I can’t. He’s wrong about me and he’s wrong about Logan. I am not mom, Logan is not you. We won’t wake up and regret this one day. If I’m wrong and we do, then whatever.
I know that and you know that, but grandpa doesn’t. Time will change things. Don’t worry about it Melissa, he’ll come around.
I am not rushing into this. I love this man, he is my soul mate.
I know. I support you in this and one day your grandfather will too. Just remember you are his first grandchild and the only granddaughter. (At the time this was true, although two years later, my Aunt and Uncle gave him is sixth grandchild, the second granddaughter.) To him, you are like his child. One that he did right by. One that he didn’t make the mistakes with that he made with us.
Dad, you are my father, not him.
Dad just sighed and tried to calm me down. He swore it’d go away, that in a few days I’d forget it.
I never did though. The things he said and the things I said changed our relationship from that day forward. He didn’t know me like I thought he did, if he’d say those things to me. I always loved him, but our relationship was never the same. I never really let him know me again.
************
Then came the call. July 2003. Grandpa’s been in an accident, my brother said. In those words my heart stopped for an instant. He was coming home from Aunt K’s and he got hit by a semi-truck. He’s in the middle of nowhere Oregon. Dad is on his way up there now.
The semi didn’t kill him. He got so lucky that day. A few broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and some bruising from the seat belt. But the scans they did of his abdomen looked off. They thought they saw something in his liver. The doc told him to go home and have his primary care physician do an MRI.
He put it off, going in. He never liked doctors. Didn’t like enclosed spaces, since he’d been hidden in a trunk off and on for days as a child, when they escaped from Poland. Eventually my dad made him go see the doc. Mid-August maybe.
Stage four. Colon cancer. By the time they find colon cancer, it has generally spread to all of your organs. It was in his liver, his pancreas, his lungs. Nothing they could do except send him home with a script for pain meds and the number for hospice. Three to six months if you are lucky.
**********
October 20th was the last time I talked to him. He was doing okay, better than expected. He still got up and left the house every day. Still went to my uncles shop and gave everyone hell. Still went to his favorite restaurants and flirted with the waitresses.
We all had plans for Sunday brunch. We’d started doing it again every week, just like when I was a small kid, since his diagnosis.
Out of the blue, my phone rings. For a second I didn’t realize it was him. The cancer had gotten into his stomach, so he had stomach acid that was damaging his vocal cords and his esophagus. His voice was changed, a strangers voice.
I am so proud of you, of the woman you’ve become, he said. I want you to always know that. To remember this forever, that I’ve always loved you. That I’ve been proud of you since the second you were born. I need you to know that I’m sorry for doubting your and Logan’s love.
I know grandpa, I told him. it’s okay. You don’t have to do this now. I will see you in three days. We can talk then.
I was busy with Morgan in that moment. Trying to get her to stop climbing the walls, to take a nap, something. The day to day stuff with a 22 moth old child.
No Melissa he said, you never know how much time is left. I may be unable to talk by Sunday. I want you to know this now, just in case. I need you to know that I love you and I love Logan and I adore that spitfire of a girl you gave me as a great-grandchild.
Okay then. Well I love you too grandpa I said. I’ve been proud to be your granddaughter my entire life. And Grandpa, I’m sorry too. I was a young fool. Not about marrying Logan, but in thinking that your opinion didn’t matter. In not listening and explaining and instead going all defensive.
I love you baby girl, was the last thing he said.
*******
The next day my uncle found him on the floor of his apartment, unconscious. He never again gained consciousness. The last nine days of his life were spent on a vent in the ICU at UCLA Medical Center. He passed away October 30, 2003.
********
I remember all of this and a million other things while eating my dinner. Who knew one smell could bring it all back? The sadness has passed in some ways. Five and a half years does that too you. You are supposed to lose your grandparents, it is the natural progression of life. Doesn’t make it easy when it happens, but you know it is going to happen. He was my first. I’ve lost the other three since then. The sadness of the two I lost last year is too fresh. When I think of them, I only remember the end.
But with him, I remember the laughs. The dates. The movie marathons. The trip to Vegas in his RV, with my dad and brothers when I was five. Week trips to the Grand Canyon. Days spent looking at boats in the Marina, looking at animals at the zoo, exploring Grifith Park. The letters I have from my weeks spent at summer camp; letters full of jokes and stories about home. The man who taught me to tie a cherry string with my tongue at four years old. The curmudgeon who I respected and loved more than most people.
One smell and it all comes back. The smell of a memory.
To my mom, the woman who carried me inside of her for 38.5 weeks. The woman who laid in bed for the last 3 months of that time, hoping beyond hope, that she and I would make it through okay. The woman who nearly died having me. The woman who didn’t know for 29 hours if I was even alive. The woman who spent the first two months of my life laying on a couch with me on her chest trying to get better. The woman who raised me, played with me, never took crap from me, who loved me every day and every night. The woman who taught me how to be a woman and a mother. My friend, my mom. Happy Mothers Day Mama, I love you.
To my babies, all three of you crazies, for making me the mother I am today. I adore you.
To my husband for giving me the three crazies. You have my whole heart.
To all of you, those who are mothers, those who have mothers and those who help mother the rest of us anyway, happy mother’s day.
In the next few weeks, I’m going to have some guest posters. I need the freedom to not write when I can’t, and to write only when I am ready. I’ve asked some amazingly lovely friends of mine to help me out. It doesn’t mean I won’t post at all, but I need to know that it’s okay if I don’t. I need time. Time to process, time to heal, time to grieve. Time to just be. Please know I’m still here, reading, tweeting…..I’m just needing a break from posting.
I found an old file, posts I had written before, on my previous blog. I might share a few in the next few weeks. I’ll put the date on them, so you know they were previously written. Some of you knew me then, so you might recognize them.
Below is the first one. I thought it seemed like a good thing to share, seeing how tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Obviously my girls were a lot younger then.
You know you are a parent when…
You buy the Princess and Spiderman Fruit Snacks instead of the organic real fruit infused with a cup of beet juice snacks, even though they are supposedly healthier, for three reasons. One, you know it is a lie, they are all full of sugar. Two, sugar never killed anyone. Three, it makes your kids smile and happy for at least three minutes.
You have Cheerios and Goldfish in your cabinets at all times. You also find random Cheerios and Goldfish under couch cushions and under your car seats at all times.
You drop a dry erase marker in a client meeting and say “uh oh”, without even thinking.
You smile a bit and gently laugh at the woman who said “uh oh” in the meeting.
You give your last piece of spicy tuna roll that was on the way to your mouth to your two year old when she says, “Mama, I hab it, purty please”, without a second thought. (Even if not eating that piece does make you want sushi for two more days, until you break down and buy more sushi.)
You find yourself dancing in odd places, like the grocery store or the elevator just because you like the song. When you realize where you are, you don’t stop, because you’re a parent and what the hell do you care what strangers think?
You go into a toy store or go online to start your birthday/Christmas shopping and while you do think to yourself, will she/he like it, you also ask yourself it it is loud enough to give you a migraine and will it hurt if I step on it at 2am in the dark?
You buy things that give you migraines and hurt your feet at 2am, because you know they will love it.
You get up in the middle of the night when you hear your child cry out even though you just want to say snuggled in you nice warm bed.
You watch The Incredibles, the Muppet’s Show and the Magic School Bus over and over again until you know the entire dialog, but you don’t make them quit watching it.
You take dozens of pictures, just hoping one of them will capture the magic of the moment. You also take pictures to remember how little they were once.
You read The Monster at the End of This Book, Goodnight Moon and Blueberries for Sal each and every night to your toddler, because they love those books and only those books, even though you’d secretly love to toss those books in the ocean or poke your eyeballs out before you will ever want to read them again.
You go into the kitchen at work and grab a bottle of water and before you take a drink, you write your name on it, so you know, there are no fights.
You look at teenagers and think they are such babies and wonder what your kids will be like at that age instead of remembering how cool you were back then.
You tell random people with newborns in stores to enjoy it while they can, because they won’t stay that tiny and huggable for long.
Happy Mother’s day everyone.
-Issa
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