A Eulogy for my Grandfather

Several years after my grandmother died, I joined my mother and brother to visit her grave. Her remains are located in a crowded cemetery, one that has different markers to guide mourners to the right place.

After visiting a different relative, my mum got turned around and could not get us back to my grandmother. My mum is a blisteringly smart woman, but directions are not her forte. The three of us wandered the rows in search of my grandmother, laughing at our predicament.

Eventually, with my mother in the distance reading people’s graves, I stood next to my brother and turned my face up to the sky. “Grandma!” I called out. “Your daughter got lost, but this time it was en route to find you. Can you give us a hint over here?”

Moments later, a crow starting cawing and flew to the far end of the section that my brother and I were standing in. We turned to look at each other sharply, eyebrows raised.

Surely not?

“Come on, let’s go!”

We both sprinted toward the bird at the same time, our pace slowing as the tombstone came into view. We found a crow sitting on my grandmother’s grave. The gravestone was double length, as she and my grandfather planned to share a double plot whenever he should pass.

We took a few moments to stop freaking out, and then called our mum over.

She was incredulous. “How did you guys find it?”

“Well, you’re not going to believe it but…..”

***

My grandfather proposed to my grandmother on the day they met, an action borne out of a connection far deeper than many of us can comprehend.

He saw her and knew, he said. There wasn’t a question in his mind.

Through the entire length of their marriage until her death in 1996, he was a gentleman deeply in love with his wife. Subsequently, and among many other things, he was a widower who would still tear up upon the mere mention of her name decades later.

I am comforted by the thought of them reunited again at last, twenty plus years later.

My grandfather proposed to my grandmother because he caught a glimpse of her on a fateful day in 1944.

He enlisted in the Air Force and was sent to England in the early 1940s. That enlistment, too, is family lore; the man wore thick glasses since he was a child but wanted to fight for his country in the Air Force during the Second World War. He couldn’t disclose his terrible eyesight, else he’d be rejected outright. So, he failed the eye test several times taking it without glasses. They turned down his application.

Did he give up? No. He never gave up. He memorized the eye chart and waited until a new doctor was giving the exam. His sneaky strategy paid off, and he finally passed. He was sent to Gander in Newfoundland for training, and eventually onwards to England. The ruse was up eventually, of course, as he was not able to fly planes without glasses. Instead, he served happily from the ground.

(I got my stubbornness from several family members, him among them.)

Eventually, he transferred to a base on the coast of England. There, he and his Air Force buddies would spent one evening each week at a hotel near the sea, playing poker with injured son of the owner.

One week in 1944, a young woman caught his attention on his way to that weekly game. She was walking down the stairs at the hotel with an older woman, her mother, and he said that she stood out immediately.

He turned to his friends and told them to go on to the game without him. He never made it to poker that night.

In all of the times that I have heard this story, I never thought to ask him how he broke the ice. I imagine that it started with a cheerful hello. Perhaps, as he saw her heading to a room in the hotel, he asked her if she was retiring so soon. They had crossed paths in the early evening; the sun hadn’t yet set.

I imagine him saying to her, “Oh hello..are you retiring so soon? Would you like to take a walk along the beach?”

Seeking an escape from the London smog for a weekend, my great-grandmother brought my grandma to the coast with her. Slim, petite, and always introspective, I never asked her what went through her head to lead her to agree to an impromptu date with a stranger at the age of 19, far from home.

I suspect it wasn’t logic, because my grandmother confirmed, too, that it was love at first sight for her. Adding to the boldness of her decision to wander the beach with a 25 year old stranger was the fact that she was engaged to a gentleman in London. For a shy (promised!) young lady to take my grandpa up on his offer during the war took something larger than life.

Love.

She did not, in fact, retire for the night, and instead did what she always did because she was always cold: she went and got a sweater. The next part we all do know. She turned and explained her need for a sweater to my grandfather, and told him that she wanted to get her mother settled for the night.

“Ok, then I will wait,” he replied.

And he did.

Their first date was a drawn-out walk along the cliffs at the edge of the sea, one that culminated in a proposal. Complicating matters was not only my grandmother’s engagement, but also that my grandfather was promised to a woman in Canada who he planned to take up with after the war.

Regardless — and as they both told it — those previous plans were impossible now. Something had shifted in the universe, something firm and unyielding. They felt that they were meant to be together, despite the chaos that would it would likely cause in each of their families and friends.

Before they knew it, it was almost curfew. My grandfather had to be back in his barracks or risk being declared AWOL. A gentleman, he tried to walk my grandmother to the hotel regardless, but she insisted that he not risk his enlistment. They made plans to meet at the hotel the next day, and she told him to rush back before it was too late.

My grandfather made it back in time and in one piece, but my grandmother did not.

During the war, a country-wide blackout went into effect Sept 1, 1939. Lights could easily geolocate a spot for Germans to bomb, so at dusk there were no lights. The effect was immediate, and conditions like “blackout anemia” spread as city dwellers got used to a life without nighttime light. “For the first minute going out of doors one is completely bewildered, wrote Londoner Phylllis Warner, “then it is a matter of groping forward with nerves as well as hands outstretched.”  Near the sea, it was especially important that the blackout was in full effect because U-boats were patrolling the waters.

With darkness upon them, my grandparents split up to make their way back to their respective sleeping spots. In the inky blackness, my grandmother felt her way along the cliffs toward the hotel. En route, she tripped over a retaining wall, fell sharply, and collapsed a lung. What was she thinking, inching back to the hotel in the dark after accepting a stranger’s engagement, in pain and alone? Again, the questions I wish I’d asked, but never thought to do as a child.

With my grandmother injured, the mother-daughter trip to the coast was over. They left at dawn for London so that she could see a doctor. The next day, my grandfather returned to the hotel as planned, only to find out that my grandmother was gone. He begged the hotel for their London address, and the staff eventually relented and gave it to him. On his first day of leave, he rushed to London to see her.

Today, treatment for a severe collapsed lung usually involves inserting a needle or chest tube between the ribs to remove the excess air. In 1945, however, it was simply bedrest for as long as it took to hopefully heal. For several months, then, my grandfather made the trip from the coast to London and back again whenever he had a day of leave. As they couldn’t go anywhere or do anything, they talked. And through her multi-month recovery, they got to know each other.

One day, my great-grandfather took my grandpa aside to ask him what his intentions were, since he was steadfastly returning to visit every chance he got. “As soon as she is better and strong enough,” my grandfather said, “I plan to make her my wife.

They were married in 1945 in London, and honeymooned in Wales.

It’s worth mentioning that my grandparents’ love story would not have happened but for several lucky twists of fate outside their initial meeting. In the case of my grandpa, the ship he was supposed to take from Gander to England was hit by a German U-boat torpedo on its trajectory. Everyone on the ship bound for England died. My grandfather was only missing on that ship because a pilot friend also on his way to serve in England had offered my grandfather a seat on his plane.

On my grandma’s side of the coin, after recovering from her collapsed lung she took a her job at the office of a munitions factory in London. She had perfect attendance at work, until she came down with the flu over a weekend. Not wanting to miss work, she only allowed herself to stay home on Monday morning, returning to the factory in the afternoon. She arrived to find it completely levelled; it suffered a direct hit by a German bomb that morning, and everyone inside was killed.

In a similar vein, she had a near-death experience on her passage to Canada. When the war ended, my grandfather returned home with his fellow servicemen. As many Canadians stationed in England met and married English women, the government provided them special ships that transported them back to their now-husbands. The Canadian government estimates that by 1946, 48,000 marriages between Canadian servicemen and civilian women overseas had been registered. The women were called “War Brides,” and while most were from Britain, a few thousand came from elsewhere in Europe, like the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy and Germany. By the end of March 1948, the Canadian government had transported approximately 44,000 wives and 21,000 children to Canada, sent across the ocean on huge troop ships or modified cruise ships.

My grandmother sailed on a troop ship, and came up on deck as she was feeling nauseous from sea-sickness during a storm. Being so slight, when a wave crashed into the ship, she went with it. A sailor happened to be holding a guide rope nearby grabbed onto her just before she was swept off deck.

She arrived safely to Halifax eventually with my grandfather eagerly awaited her smiling, no doubt exhausted, face. They settled in Montreal, eventually starting a family of their own.

We humans love to connect dots, and to create a compelling narrative where there may not be any. Were they just lucky? Perhaps. In my family, they were far more than that. A couple that was simply fated to be, with an incredible love story that transcended time, war, and borders to bring them together.

***

Every conversation with my grandfather started with intense cheer.

“Hello Dolly!” He would say when he saw me, “tell me some good news.”

It wasn’t just me. He brightened everyone’s day, no matter the place or person. He was universally loved, to the point where his caretakers and nurses sobbed when they heard the news of his passing. Throughout his life, he comported himself with dignity and a strength that you knew you never wanted to test.

Before he retired, he worked in the menswear industry, building a modest company into a huge operation over the course of his career. Due to his vocation, he was impeccably dressed until his heath interfered and people chose his clothes for him. In true grandpa fashion, he was classy and comfortable without ever appearing snobby. He dressed well because he believed in the products he made and the materials he traveled far and wide to personally source.

He is the only man I’ve ever met who could make an ascot seem normal.

That’s a testament to his shapeshifting nature, one day selling his clothing to shops, and the next in the countryside to see what raw materials he wanted to buy next. I drew on his strength many times when on the road and out of my element, or up to my eyeballs in fear. He was a comforting chameleon who charmed everyone.

The man also did great at anything he put his mind to. And I’m not just talking about his work. He bowled a perfect game for most of his life, and at 89, he complained to my mother that his arm was hurting. My mum gently told him that perhaps three different bowling leagues weren’t the best idea as he approached his 90th birthday.

Fiercely independent and unrepentant in his desire to live each day fully, he was not impressed by her suggestion that he cut down to two.

He learned how to play bridge at 85, not only learned but learned, remembered, and excelled.

Around the same time, he decided to join meals on wheels, for “something else to do.” Not content to bowl, go to the gym (yes, the gym), socialize, and participate in community programmes, he wanted to give back. That’s right, in his 80s he joined Meals on Wheels to serve the food — not to receive it.

“I’m going to visit the old people,” he’d tell my mum with a characteristic chortle.

He was, of course, older than many of the people who received those meals.

***

My grandfather taught me to stand up for what I believe in, not just because someone tells me to do so but because it was right. Because I knew it was right inside, not outside. “No one can take that from you”, he’d say, looking right into the heart of who I could be. “You stand up for what you know is right.”

Integrity mattered to him, to me, and to all of his grandkids.

My grandfather taught me that anything in life was possible in life and love.

He taught me that mealtimes could be anything I wanted them to be, with his joyful celebration of soup for dessert. Why have ice cream when there’s soup available? He never turned down a bowl, something my cousin Alanna and I clearly inherited from him.

By extrapolation life could be anything you wanted it to be, too. While he didn’t understand why I quit my job as a lawyer to start traveling, when this blog turned into a website and a business, he believed I was making a difference. (Plus, by then I was telling everyone “I eat soup for a living”, so I am sure that bought me some goodwill). I was helping people learn new things without compromising my values, something that mattered to him.

I have handwritten notes from him well into his 90s, encouraging me to keep doing what I was doing.

One of my favourite memories of him was a trip to New York City when he turned 90. I was working at a law firm then, and my parents drove in with him during thanksgiving weekend. He traipsed around town with us, over the Brooklyn Bridge, down into the subways, and into Times Square. He had not been to New York since the 1950s, and I remember looking over at him in the neon chaos of 42nd street, with all its noise and bustle and movement. He looked up, he took a deep breath, and said “you know, take away the neon and it really isn’t that different.”

He was adaptable in ways that I couldn’t even fathom, and his ability to find connection to everything, everyone, everywhere, is a part of why I traveled the way I did.

He made it to 100, spending his milestone birthday last year surrounded by friends and family.

By that point, dementia had set in. He did not recognize who I was, and in the days leading up to his party he often asked my mother how she and I met. He talked to me about how we were currently on a ship bound for Calais, how the cliffs of Dover were fading away behind us. Not wanting to agitate him, I went along with his memories. “Yes, it’s quite lovely here isn’t it?” I’d ask, appeasing him.

On the day of his 100th birthday party, or that he was turning 100.

“I AM?” He said, astonished. “100? Are you sure?”

He also couldn’t figured out why everyone was clamouring around him that day. “Dolly,” he said conspiratorially as I walked by him that day, “what is going on?” Someone cut in to say that it was a party for him, telling him that we were celebrating him on his birthday. They asked him if he wanted to stand up and say something to the room.

And he did what he always did and took charge of the situation with grace, poise, and authority. Despite not remembering he was 100, nor recognizing most of the people in attendance, he spoke clearly and confidently.

“I want to thank everyone here for coming to see me today. And I hope you all enjoy yourselves and have a wonderful time!”

***

 

Though my spinal CSF leak was sealed during my grandpa’s 100th birthday party, something I’ll always be profoundly grateful for, I was too sick to attend his funeral. He was the second grandparent’s life celebration I missed when my leak reopened after 8 months.

To grieve alone when your family grieves together is a deeply isolating thing. Thankfully, with so much family in town for the funeral, I was not alone for it all. My cousins piled onto the floor of my tiny bedroom for hours to grieve with me. And when we were all smushed together, reminiscing before his funeral, the amazing love story of our grandparents was the first thing we discussed. Among the memories, we talked about how as with many stories that span distance and generational time, the narrative succumbed to a game of broken telephone over the years.

One of our favourite memories was how at my cousin’s wedding in 2007, with close family gathered, we finally put my grandfather on the spot during a break in festivities to set the record straight. The candid photos from that gathering encapsulate his status as beloved patriarch: us cousins gesticulating wildly, our parents shaking their heads at the versions of the love story that ensued, and my grandfather in the centre with his head thrown back in full-body laughter.

My cousins and I reminisced together, bound by our collective grief. About this famous family day. About how during loud, drawn-out family gatherings, he would glare at us sternly at the kids’ table until we piped down enough for him to say blessings before the meal. And then, while the meal was served, he would come our way, ostensibly to “check on us,” but inevitably to sit down and spend part of the meal with his grandkids. We shared what we each learned from him over the many hours of wise advice we received during our respective lunches, phone calls, and visits.

That nighttime tribute with my cousins felt like a beautiful celebration, one that he would have approved of. Later, we all went upstairs to rejoin our parents and continue the memories until we could barely keep our eyes open.

***

My grandfather proposed to my grandmother on the day they met, and though he taught my cousins and I many things, the legacy of their love abides in each of us. In the time since, he lived an astounding life full of more variety and purpose than most people get during their time on earth.

With every single thing he did, and every person he interacted with, he was charming, polite, and perspicacious.

Painful memories still hit hard, even though it’s been many years. Grief follows no timeline, of course, but even with time it comes back without warning in the smaller remembrances that give a sharp gut punch.

How he loved a bowl of Wendy’s chilli, and every road trip (or city drive) with him involved a Wendy’s stop. Any excuse for a Wendy’s stop.

How we would all go for Chinese buffets as a family, and when everyone got dessert, he’d loop back to get another bowl of soup.

The smell of pipe tobacco from before he quit smoking.

His beloved ascot.

The pageboy caps he wore during every winter month.

That raucous, eternal laugh.

***

In early April 2018, I was resting and reading in my mum’s room. A flash of black caught my eye, and I looked up to see a crow flying straight at the window. It veered suddenly and disappeared.

Intrigued, I log-rolled out from the bed to look outside. The crow was sitting on the street in front of the house, and stared me straight in the eyes before flying away.

“Goodbye grandma,” I said softly. It reminded me of that story from her grave that I hadn’t thought about in some time.

That night, I went to my computer and downloaded a whole bunch of photos of me and my grandfather that I had stored to the cloud. I’m not even sure why, other than the crow reminded me of his beloved wife. These are the photos I’ve used in this post. When I told my brother about the crow visit, he shook his head and said, “well Jodi, the birds certainly seem to give you messages.”

My grandfather passed peacefully in his sleep that night, in the early hours of dawn. Peacefully, and unexpectedly.

I suppose nothing is unexpected when you are a hundred and a half, but his body was so robust that we were all shocked.

When I saw the bleary panic and grief in my mother’s eyes the next morning when she woke me up with the news, I never even thought that it was about my grandfather. He was a hundred, yes, but he was indomitable.

Of course, he was also human.

Transcending our grief was our relief that he passed painlessly and quickly.

And in death, as in life, he kept the whole family on its toes.

I miss him very much.