In loving memory of Grandpa Bill.
Image Source: Grøn te
The humidity of early summer always makes me reminisce about childhood. Particularly, I’ve been thinking a lot about the time I spent as a kid with my late grandpa. He passed away last October, and this Saturday, June 27, would have been his 82nd birthday.
One of my clearest memories is how he would spend afternoons in the hot garage working on one DIY project or another, and I’d join to watch. “Can I help?” was always my first question. With a reluctant yes, he’d let me hammer a few nails or hold a board steady as he measured. The nails went in crooked and the boards teetered as my eight-year-old hands tried their best. I sensed at times that I was just getting in the way.
While we were working, I’d further test my grandpa’s patience by changing whatever music he had playing on the radio. Looking for Top 40 over his Oldies, he’d jest at me to leave the radio alone. Despite my antics and tendency to slow down his work, I think he liked having me around. He wasn’t the type to verbalize his feelings, but I felt reassured when he gave me my very own pink, kid-sized hammer as a gift.
Lost Loved Ones Live On Through Tradition
Grandparents are gifts that mark childhood. Whether they are physically present or not, their lives impact us through generations of handed-down family traditions.
My parents’ traits, habits, and routines give a glimpse of where they came from and who raised them. In my dad’s liking of reggae music, his preference for ocean coastlines over city skylines, and his disposition for giving tough love, I understand a little bit more about where my family comes from and my grandpa’s roots in the Caribbean.
Given the generation gap between my grandpa and me, I’m only able to conjure up a half-formed image of who he really was. Truthfully, I don’t know much about him outside of his role as “Grandpa.”
I do know that he grew up on St. Lucia, a vibrant Caribbean island populated with kind, hard-working people. I’m not sure what his childhood was like, whether it was full of hardship or blissfully peaceful. Or if his teen years were full of rebellion or dense with responsibility. If I had to guess, it was probably a little bit of all of the above.
My grasp on what kind of life he lived and what kind of person he was starts to take shape within his adult life. He married my grandmother, likely drawn to her beauty, her bold confidence, and her deeply compassionate heart. They had five children together. I know from my dad’s stories that my grandpa loved his children. I know he bought my dad and his brother G.I. Joes and that he worked hard to provide for them. I know he enjoyed working with his hands and built his own home appliances company from the ground up.
Unfortunately, I also know some of the things he put his heart into didn’t work out. A Category 5 storm (Hurricane Hugo) devastated the island structurally and economically in 1989. This led to his company going out of business. His marriage also weathered many personal storms and dissolved into divorce. His relationships with his children became strained.
But his story cannot be dismissed here at this point.
My grandpa was wise enough to recognize his own faults and strong enough to reapproach life with a changed perspective.
It’s Never Too Late To Start Again
My dad tells me that it was my birth that reconnected him with his estranged father. They had hardly spoken to each other in years when my dad picked up the phone, wanting to share the news that his first grandchild had been born.
After two strokes, my grandpa became a very present figure in my life. With limited mobility on his left side after both strokes, he moved away from St. Lucia to come live with my parents in the States. They helped him through his rehabilitation, and my sisters and I got to have our grandpa close by.
Slowly gaining some of his mobility back through rehab, he was able to get a job at a home improvement store that allowed him to continue working in a field he enjoyed. He smoothed over hard feelings with family and became a softer, gentler man. One who flew kites, shared stories, and made PB&Js with his grandchildren.
That’s the grandpa I know best. I remember him as the light that made so much of my childhood bright. The jokes, the pranks, the lessons, and the laughter twinkle like stars in my recollections, undimmed by the passage of time that tends to fade other memories.
I remember the wild stories he’d tell my sisters and I about being related to royalty (most likely made up to entertain us). I remember him boiling water and ginger root on the stove to cure my stomach aches. Also, how he hid cigarettes under a rock in the backyard when he was trying to quit, and I found them. He did eventually quit.
I remember when he moved into an assisted living facility and my mom would bring me over with my sisters after school. We’d ride around the halls on his electric mobility scooter and wave hello to the other residents.
As more time passed, he was moved to a nursing home to receive more intensive care. My dad would pick him up on Sundays and bring him to the house to eat lunch and watch football. From his wheelchair, he always had a smile and a hug to give me. Sometimes he had a joke to tell or something smart to say. His sense of humor and booming laugh never weakened, even when his body did.
It was in that nursing home that we had our final goodbye, and I held his hand one last time.
In Loving Memory of Grandpa Bill
Grandpa,
Thank you for the laughs and the ginger tea. Thank you for everything.
Until we see each other again,
Isabella
Melissa Gustave says
This was very touching and you described Uncle Bill to a tee 😊 He will be greatly missed but one thing I know he will live on in our hearts forever❤️🙏
Amanda says
Such a beautiful story,, u were lucky to have a granfather’s love
Shalyn says
This was a beautiful read! ❤️ I’m sure there were some tears shed when writing this. Grandparents do hold a special place in our hearts, and I know how hard it can be to put that into words, but I think you hit it right In the head. Love you and your family, and I only met your grandfather a few times, but he was A wonderful man.