We took a recent family cruise to celebrate Irma's parents 50th Anniversary.
The trip with Alex & Max's grandparents made me think back to my grandparents and think about my kids' relationship with theirs.
I knew three of my four grandparents -- just as my boys do now. Unlike them, my grandparents mostly lived nearby.
Just like them, my dad's dad died when I was fairly young. I was about 10 when my Grandpa Gene died. Max and Alex didn't get to know their Grandpa Phil at all. He died when Max was not yet one and Alex wasn't yet born.
I have some memories of my Grandpa Gene. Perhaps better memories than my dad did of his father. To me, Grandpa Gene was a magician who always had a different girlfriend whenever I saw him. To my dad, my Grandpa Gene used magic and girlfriends to avoid being a father.
I had issues with my dad -- stuff I'm sure I'll tell my boys all about some day. However, mostly the memories are good
Of my grandparents, I was closest to my dad's mom Grandma Gert. I remember her sense of humor and her ability to adapt. She was divorced when couples didn't get divorced, inherited lots of money after raising three kids on little, saw most of her grandchildren marry outside the faith, live in sin and a whole bunch of other stuff. And although she didn't like a lot of it, she accepted it all because she loved us so.
"Bobby," she asked me one day when I was probably in my late 20s, "have you ever dated a Jewish girl?"
"Yes, grams," I have.
"Was it so bad?" she asked without a hint of sarcasm.
I remember going to her apartment on Lake Shore Drive. I remember the root beer floats, walks to Buckingham Fountain and Jew spaghetti. I remember learning to play poker, guessing which hand had more coins in it and seeing the Totem pole from the window. Later, I remember her complaining about the old neighbors, the aches and how she was living too long. There was the sense of humor and the practical jokes and the complaint of not being able to buy half a celery.
One time I was home from college and I went to visit her in her 90s. She complained about my dad's weight, wondered why cousins didn't marry the woman they lived with and told me that the two most important things were sex and money.
"I thought you told me it was love and money, grams?" I questioned.
"Ahh, love," she said.
Years after she died, Cousin John said at a family gathering "It's remarkable that not one occasion goes by that she's not the main topic of conversation."
That's my grams.
My mom's parents I knew but for whatever reason not as well. They seemed to be in-and-out-of illness and moved to Florida for several years while I was growing up. I remember going to their Old Orchard apartment pool, visiting them in Florida and going to The Club and hearing the stories of the Powelite factory -- something that probably should have made them rich but only resulted in disappointment. I remember hearing about their home with the movie theater and seeing my grandpa's love of singing, dancing and entertaining. I remember tasting Grandma Francis' way too sweet bad coffee. There was a true sponge cake for some party. I remember grandma telling me I drove too fast one time I drove them to some doctor appointment and her giving me a quarter for every fingernail I grew longer than hers.
The saddest memory I have is watching my Grandpa Herman waste away from Alzheimer's Disease. Each time I went back to Chicago I'd go by the home where he'd live. The first visits were full of confusion and talk about why he shouldn't be there.
The most powerful and strangest memory I have is a conversation I had with him sitting on a bench outside the home. We had just taken a walk around the property -- something I was told later was not allowed. I wish I had somehow been able to record that conversation or remembered the details or could shake the feeling I had when I left and went back to my car.
In probably a five minute conversation he took me backward and forward through his whole life starting with himself as an 80-year-old man and slowly regressing to when he was in his 20s and then back up again telling a story of each age as if it had just happened. He was an old man who forgets thing and then he was a young gun starting a business and building a house and then soon he was living one place and now here and he was confused.
The hardest thing I ever witnessed was watching my mom and aunt get my grandfather ready for my grandmother's funeral. They had to tell him every few minutes why he was putting on a suit and why he was leaving the home -- a place by then he felt secure in. He cried each time and then quickly forgot what was happening.
Wow.
When I started this blog entry I had intentions of expressing sorrow that my kids' wouldn't have the relationship with their grandparents like I had with mine.
By the end here, I'm wondering if I wrote more about sadness than happiness.
Irma and I moved away from our homes and started a family together in a new place. Nashville has been darn good to us and I'm overall happy to be here.
Times like this, though, I realize that by moving here, I did give up some stuff -- for me and my children.
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