The Passing of Family

Atop the Stoa this night, I ponder the passing of family from this world.

The generational links that bind us form at birth and dissolve upon death. Those around us imprint something of themselves at every encounter. In my case it is the passing of a grandfather. His imprinting upon me differed, of course, from the rearing of my father. I saw him only infrequently before I became an adult. A year or so would pass as a child, and many years would pass as an adult from meeting to meeting. Eventually, we met only at the funeral of an extended family member.

He was a good man. A kind man. Intelligent, hardworking, WWII veteran. He raised three children and tolerated a powerful wife who wanted to see that he would return from the war before she committed to marriage. She worked at Studebaker for 20 years and at the University of Notre Dame for 19 years.

I saw him as a man who was serious, but able to smile when appropriate. My father's recollection of him is that of a father, who was stern and unable to give him a confidence-building pat on the back.

Regardless of his impact on others, I always looked upon him with a detached fondness.

Family is like that. Each one touches the others around them differently. My grandmother (his wife) was not very fond of much, or of me. The feeling was mutual, though I did have a lot of respect for her. When she passed in 2006, I studied her life with the eyes and mind of an adult, and not that of a child. She was a remarkable woman, though apparently cold and distant to her grandchildren. Looking at them as a pair, I can not be surprised that my father's life took the course it did, given how they shaped him growing up, though he did, of course have a choice.

The grandparent that made the most impact on me was my Grandfather on my mother's side. He passed in 1979 when I was only 10, and much of what I remember of him has to highly romanticized. Knowing that people are not all good or all bad, I can still accept him as the great man I remember him to be.

My other grandmother (his wife) is still alive at 92 and impresses me still. I find it strange that from my grandparents I see traits that I want to emulate (or learn from), and from my parents, traits I wish to shun. My grandparents remained married, each for more than 50 years, while my parents had a messy divorce when I was 20.

My grandparents saved for their retirement and their future. They bought much of what they owned without debt or long terms. They endured the great depression, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and all the other political upheavals of their times. Yet, they were still upbeat and productive members of their society.

All four of them volunteered with the church, served the poor and helped their community. My parents have been less altruistic. It is not a knock on my parents, they are who they are and I accept them for what they are. I am who I am today because of them, so any negative attribute I assign to them is something that shaped me into the virtuous individual I try to be today.

The generation above us shapes us. The generations about us shape us. Our relationships with our grandparents are shaped by their upbringing 50+ years ago, translated through the generational lens of our parents, shaped more than 20 years ago. We are shaped by our grandparents as surely as we are shaped by our parents, whether we notice it or not.

We shape our children and will help to create the next "culture" in which they will in turn raise their children. Generational influence, hundreds of years up and down the generational chain.

Think about that when dealing with your children or your grand children. Your words, actions, laughs, smell, chocolate chip cookies...all of it becomes part of the memories that will pack down through the decades. Children, a century later may use an idiom or a hand gesture that would seem so in place a century earlier.

Good stuff to ponder, the next time you interact with a family member. Enjoy them while they are here, since it is much harder to interact with them when they are gone. Bite back the angry retort at Thanksgiving, allow them to mend a fence if they wish. Ponder this, class, for I will continue to ponder the passing of my grandfather for a long time to come.

Live well

--Zavost