Last Updated on September 4, 2013 by James Dziezynski
Gramp and a very young Fremont.
Most of us have experienced raw moments when our loved ones – relatives, friends, pets – have been overtaken by illness or weakness. I have felt disconcerting shifts when I am the stronger of the two, a feeling of shameful health, as if within the natural order of things some law has been broken. How is it that those who have protected us, guided us and sheltered us are bizarrely without the resources to do so? If we have loved well and are fortunate enough to journey into old-age together, this audience with our elders is inevitable.
Because I am of my grandfather and have inherited a bit of his toughness, it was especially difficult to see his frustrations mount as his body began to betray him. My last time with him on this Earth was fortunately a wonderful day, where he spoke fondly of the past with lots of laughter. I drove off, he smiled and waved good-bye. Perhaps a bit selfishly I got to savor that moment while other family members stood by his side during the difficult decline in his health.
Regardless of the spiritual theories we humans spin, it is never lost on me that we are the actual living flesh and blood of our ancestors. Biologically, we are a densely coded DNA life raft that goes on in time, built on the hardwired habits and genetic blueprint of those before us. Less tangibly, we are the heart and soul of our forefathers and mothers, a much more difficult metric to measure but inevitably selected just like our eye color.
While I still have a long way to go before I match my grandfather’s dignity, compassion, toughness, good humor and reliability, I’d like to think I have a garden of all those seeds growing at different rates within me. Even though we are cobbled together of our progenitors’ strengths and weaknesses, we also develop our own self along the way, a unique and divergent personality, for better or worse.
As I remember my Grandfather, I find his memory firmly aligned with all the great things he accomplished in life. I love that in my own mind, he is eternally strong and smart with boyish admiration of dogs and baseball. I marvel at his good humor even towards the end and the generous conversations we had throughout the years. Boy, do I miss him, not only in the obvious objective ways but even in my subconscious. I often literally dream of our summers in Maine together. These dreams surface when present life has become difficult and my mind aches to retreat to a simpler, happier and blissful place.
I am most grateful for the deep impression of those wonderful times. They were just so good that no illness, no weakness, no departure can ever overtake them. I remember so clearly what it was like when I was young and he was strong and how blatantly idyllic the world was. That is what remains, a memory fond and powerful that reminds me that life is made up of moments that may not always be harmonious but that always return to something peaceful, proud and real. His importance resonates in my own life with a value that is beyond measure.
