The Night of Heros

[stitchwhich]

The idea is to spend a week dedicating each night's meal and discussion to members of one's family or Clan who have passed on yet were heroes, seers, martyrs... celebrating their significance to the family and it's members. I don't have many memories of my family, my knowledge of them stretches only to the fourth generation so I have chosen to also honor those who gave me inspriation or strength yet who were related to me only by our commonality in humanity. That being said, tonight I honor my maternal Grandfather.

 

A "black" Welshman, he came to America from the mining mountains of Wales. Once in America, he worked as a construction man. I never learned how such a "low status" man met my grandmother, a pampered and proud Daughter of the New Orleans 500 (doncha know) but somehow he wooed and won her. They married in the face of my great-grandmother's disapproval and given that she'd thrown away her legacy and her title to marry her American, I can only shake my head at the psychology of Motherhood. Grandpa travelled to wherever there was work. He had the black curly hair and midnight eyes that are the legacy of the Black Welsh (and written about so often) and the huge shoulders that a mountain man can develop. His eyes twinkled when he looked at life, even in the face of his hardships. He and my grandmother raised seven children. I don't know how many they lost but I know there were a few. He was up at sunup and home only after sundown. For years before I was born, Grandmother had a "girl" to help her, courtesy of her mother (Grandmere would give grandmother a gift of a girl every year for her birthday. The serving woman was under strict orders to not lift a finger for Grandpa but to do all that she could to lighten my grandmother's life.) While grandpa was killing himself for $2 a day during the depression, grandmere was sending off to France for silk hose and cases of wine from the family vineyards. Occasionally, my grandmother would indulge in a spat of bitterness about what she'd grown up with in contrast with what she married into - yet grandpa would never betray by one look or comment how much her comments must have hurt him.

 We'd drive up on weekends to see them, travelling from Portland Oregon to Kennewick Washington in one long car trip, never arriving before sundown. Grandmother'd seerve us a meal and then sit up and chat with my mom while I listened (and later, joined in) and grandpa would retire to their room to sleep. After about a half an hour, there'd be the sound of a knuckle knocking against the bedroom wall above their headboard and my grandfather's voice would fill the main floor, "Mary Helen! It's getting late!" Grandmother would call back to him that she'd be right in and we'd have another 15 minutes or so to talk before, "Mary Helen! Mary Helen, it's time to sleep!" She'd smile and shake her head and tell us goodnight. To his dying day, he couldn't sleep without his wife at his side.

He bought a house for her before my mother, the third of their seven kids, was in High School. They lived in it for over 50 years before he finally died. He was a powerful man brought low by the same back weakness that I recently needed surgery for - a genetic marker that put him and I in some computer file somewhere. He built additional rooms onto their house so his wife could have a proper dining room and a parlour. He bought a Steinway piano for her, there being too little room for a "proper" one, and would sit and listen to her play in the evenings and watch her with eyes of wonder. He never really believed that such a beautiful and gifted woman would consent to be his wife and bear his children.

He dressed in a Santa suit every Christmas eve of my childhood and none of us grandkids could figure out how he got onto the sitting room roof when the only entry was through a window under which we were usually sleeping. But somehow, every Christmas eve, we'd catch a glimpse of a booted foot and red trousers sneaking around the other side of the chimney, never knowing that he must have climbed a ladder to reach the roof and then made enough noise to wake us so we could look through the window and see "Santa" hiding behind the chimney.

He never gave us girl-children instructions on life or manners when we stayed with them for the summer season or on holidays. He'd just look solemn for a moment and direct us to his wife, "Go to your grandmother, child, she knows better than I." I always thought he was trying to get out of the hassle of explaining things. Later, when I was older, I understood that for such a straight-forward man, the ways and rules of Society did not much more than baffle and irritate him. He never understood why one would need to know so many odd behaviours yet he knew that they were part of what had shaped his wife. Enchanted with her, he accepted that we'd need her knowledge and training to be as loved by our own husbands. And I'm sure that he hid many a smile at the scene of this small girl learning to walk, sit, and dine with a book and a teacup on her head (walking wasn't hard - getting back up from a chair, now, that took practise!) and all the strange rituals that my grandmother trained me through. (I of course, shed them when I got older and lazier.)

 To the end of his life, my grandfather never treated me with anything but kindness and a quiet resignation once I took a stand against the family's hypocrisy. I had, as an idealistic teenager, informed my family that they were bigots in their behaviors and that I was ashamed of their behaviors - racial and cultural bias, the stupid "what would they think if they knew" hiding of family sorrow that so governed my Grandmother's actions. He didn't argue with what his wife treasured in her memories of another time and in "proper behaviour", but his eyes showed his love for the little girl who refused to judge a person based on anything but their actions even as he had to acknowledge that it meant being estranged from her for the sake of upholding his wife's standards. His eyes, and once in a while, his words, would tell me how he honored me for not caving in to that part of my heritage.

I hadn't seen him for 10 years by the time he died, nor spoke with him over the phone, yet I have never doubted his love for me and his family, his treasuring of his wife even in adversity, and his strong will that drove him to provide a comfortable and sheltered life for his children. Not every hero gets the chance to make one grand stand they are remembered by. Grandpa made one every day in his world of work and care, with small actions, thoughtful carpentry, and the eye of an artist, however humble or discounted by "Society". His art and craft are what his grandchildren remember and find precious. He took a odd nook in his attic and turned it into a little girl's hide-away for me when I was only 4 or 5. It was set aside as "Terri's" for about 10 years or longer, even though there were other granddaughters by then - but it was my haven in an unsettled life. Grandmother filled it with the kind of furniture that soothed one's heart but it was grandpa who mended and refinished that furniture, who created the perfect setting for each tiny wooden gem. I don't know if I ever really told him how important that room and it's solid example of love was for me. I whisper it to him now and then when I think he can hear me.

The night of Heroes. He's one of mine.