For the past few weeks, I’ve been taking a memoir class. Once a week, I meet with a small group of low-key, truth-driven creative writers for two hours of writerly bliss. My attendance is in no way tied to the presence of Moon Pie, the teacher’s outgoing and social cat, though it certainly adds to the experience.
We started a few weeks ago working off of prompts, and every one of us wrote something different and moving. The prompt may be about your first bra, but your written piece is never really about the bra. It’s about the memories, the feelings, attached to that object or place in time, and how all of that affected you (and still affects you).
The prompts led us to one central question: What is it you wonder about? Whatever that is, go write about it.
One thing I wonder about it is my grandfather. I never really got to know him. He died when I was in high school. As a kid, he was a looming figure and as a teenager, I was “too cool” to spend time with old people. I wish I knew him more. As I dive deeper into genealogy and my family tree, I am discovering all kinds of interesting people. Every time I sit down to work on the family tree, I say I am “spending time with dead people.” (Side note: Thanks to access to death certificates, I know I need to take care of my heart, lest I go the way of many of my ancestors.)
So here I am, getting to know my grandfather from the grave. So when Melissa, our fearless memoir leader, urged us to write about subjects about whom we wonder, I decided to spend some time with Glenn. Here’s what I wrote for last week’s class. I hope you enjoy getting to know a little more about Pap. He could be gruff, but he could be soft too.
Glenn
Who are you? No really, who are you? The version of you that I knew was frightening. Tall, with an uneven gait, not unlike Herman Munster. Quick to raise your voice, a lose flair trapped in your recliner. I remember your fingers, clumsy, rough, calloused skin, thick nails.
I remember being frightened of you because you were frightened of yourself, of your misbehaving body. I don’t remember you smiling. What I do recall is your grimace, your wild eyes scraping around the room as your chair lift slowly lowered your stiff, 2x4 legs, your feet to the carpet.
It’s hard to remember your softness, despite there being plenty of it. How you and Dad built the dollhouse for Diane and me. The story goes you two stayed up late on Christmas Eve, gluing tiny wood shutters and shingles the size of your finger nails. You had a drawer full of rainbow Lifesavers. Surely the man I knew as a child couldn’t be so harsh if he kept a drawer in the kitchen dedicated to Lifesavers.
After Gram died, I found old photographs, your wedding album. You were handsome, dark hair and dark eyes, strong cheekbones, tall. What struck me most was your smile – natural, easy, concealing a hint of a secret. You smiled with your eyes as much as you smiled with your mouth.
I only know the news ticker headlines of your life.
-D-Day survivor and Dachau liberator, returns home from war, meets Vivian, daughter of a local fruit farmer.
-They marry, have twin daughters, then a son, then another son.
-They scrape by, pinch pennies. Eventually their children grow old and start families of their own.
-Muscular Dystrophy creeps in, freezes your legs, makes your hands rigid, makes you appear ghoulish to your grandchildren. You die.
I know you are more than that. I know you could be soft.