Last week a great man left this world at the age of 89… his name was Einer, a true Norwegian if there ever was one. He was my grandpa, and all-around good friend...I will miss him dearly.
I will miss the wonderful way his laughter lit up a room. The way the Cubs continually confounded him. The way we’d argue about cars before I even knew how to drive. The way he taught me how to fish on Bass Lake in Wisconsin when I was nine. And the way his house smelled whenever he donned his chef’s apron and made traditional Norwegian food such as Lutefisk, Pasty, Potato Pancakes and, of course, Lefse.
It’s taken a bit, really, for the reality to sink in and, to be honest, I’m not sure it ever will. He passed away the day I left and, regrettably, I was unable to attend his funeral. So, to me, he never left. In my mind he’s still in a chair in Wisconsin reading a novel by a window with a view of the river and, surely, I’ll see him again next time I’m in town.
But the rational adult in me knows deep down the gravity of the situation. The simple fact that I just referred to myself as an ‘adult’ and not a boy or a son or grandson is proof positive that the wheel of life has just turned another revolution and there’s a great big finger on it that now points in my direction as if saying, “You’re up. Prove yourself. Carve out a life bigger than those who’ve come before. You’re at bat. Don’t miss.”
It’s a strange thing thinking about the departed. I feel surprisingly indifferent about the whole thing, even though I know it’s been absolute murder on the rest of my family. The feeling of finality is strangely absent and I feel, in some strange way, that since I wasn’t able to attend my grandfather’s funeral, that karma will come back around to bite me in my old age and no one will show up for my own. Irrational fears, but fears nonetheless.
Maybe this is part of getting older. You start feeling the weight of things out of your control, so you get married, join a religion, or become more spiritual. You trek around the world to find yourself… in short, you panic and try to control the uncontrollable when more than anything you just have to let go.
But it kills me knowing my grandpa never really got to know the ‘adult’ me. The person I’ve become since college. The things I’ve seen. The places I’ve been. The photographer I’ve become. This one in particular kills me because my grandpa was a fine photographer in his day, and was always a source of curiosity for me growing up and seeing all his gear.
I wish we had been able to take photographs together. I wish I could have photographed him in his prime as a way for us all to remember his face. The strong, proud guy everyone knew him to be.
I wish I could have shown him just one photograph of mine. But with all the distance between us in his final years, with me being in school, then Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and now on the other side of the country in Arizona, he never did end up seeing a single frame I’d managed to capture in the past three years. That’s what really kills me because I know I could have given him a smile or two with my work and maybe, just maybe that would have been enough for him to live an extra day.
And I’m left wishing I had accomplished something he could have been proud of. His admiration would have been more rewarding than my own mother’s, I think.
Here’s the thing about men in families… nothing is expected or a foregone conclusion. Everything is earned through blood, sweat and tears, while the women, whether mothers or sisters, consider everything an inevitability because their son/brother is obviously better than everyone else. At least that’s the way it’s always seemed to me and my family. Sons will always strive for the admiration of their fathers and grandfathers. That’s the way it’s always been and the way it always will be.
For seven years, from the time I was eight years old, to about the time I was learning to drive, my family lived with my grandparents, so we were very close. Closer than my father and I were during that time, to be honest, so in a strange way, I almost considered my grandpa to be my surrogate father, helping me through the incubation period of childhood and into the chaos of becoming a teenager. And this was something he no doubt took great pride in, having himself already raised three daughters and only one son. He loved his children (my mother, two aunts and uncle), but I always got the sneaking suspicion that he wished he had more sons, but that was just me. I’m sure he enjoyed every minute we were together. I certainly did.
Farewell, gramps… see you on the other side,
-Seth
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