Happy Birthday, Grandpa Joe

Today would have been my Grandpa Joe's birthday if he were still alive. He was my father's father.

Joe would have been 109 years old. He died in 1989 from lung problems caused by smoking and from working in the West Virginia coal mines when he was young. He had served in World War II as well, part of the push into France and then Germany in 1945.

My grandfather was in the Army for most of my father's young years. My father told me once that when the soldiers finally came home, he knew his daddy because he was the man his mother was hugging and kissing on.

My father's parents moved to California when I was about six months old, taking with them my father's two older brothers and their young families, and his younger sister. I don't know why my father stayed. Perhaps my mother didn't want to move. 

In any event, this meant that my paternal grandparents were not people I knew very well for most of my childhood. They existed for me as a voice on the phone into which I blew kisses at my mother's urging, strange Christmas presents under the tree that I generally did not play with. In hindsight this is terrible, because I suspect those presents were a bit of a hardship for them to send. 

My grandparents in California were people my father talked about. To me, they were like ghosts.

They first visited when I was about ten. I don't recall much about that visit. My grandmother talked very fast and very loudly. She loved to cook — she would have dinner waiting when my mother came home from work. My Grandpa Joe played guitar and told stories. The visit did not last long.

We drove to California in 1976. I don't recall much about seeing my grandparents that trip. My cousin had run away from home and there was much concern about her. I remember some guitar playing, a trip to a vast flea market where my mother bought a lamp with an orange shade and fringe on it, and that's about it.

My grandparents came to visit again in 1981, around March, and said they would stay until my graduation in June. I was quite excited about this. But my grandmother, after about two weeks, said she missed her dog and they left.

I have a Yamaha guitar that my grandfather gave to me before he left that time. I think it was sort of graduation and consolation prize combined.

After I married, my grandfather and I became pen pals. I felt a kinship with him that I did not feel with my father's other relatives. He sent me stories he wanted preserved because he thought I would keep them. He wrote me poems. He tried to give me life advice, but not much. I guess he thought I'd learn whatever I needed to know. I still have all the originals, safely tucked away. 

Eventually I typed out most of his stories and made a little book, which I shared with my father and other relatives. He told me just before he died that he had more things to send me, but I never received them and I don't know what happened to them.

He always teased me and said I was two days older than he was. Same joke every year. I never tired of it.

They visited one last time around 1988, and my grandfather died the following year. They were pleased to see my house, happy with my husband, glad that I seemed settled. I did not see either of them again, although my grandmother lived to be 97 and died in 2017.

Describing my paternal grandparents is difficult for me because I did not know them well. I cannot paint a word picture of them the way I could my maternal grandmother. All I have are scattered memories and my grandfather's words on paper.

This was my loss. Maybe it was their loss, too.