Personal
Hi! After spending several days obsessing over this page, considering what needs fixed and updated, I granted myself days, weeks I guess, to sit in the pride I have for this account. I’ve had the intention of posting twice monthly, likely on the first and fifteenth. However, only the future knows how scheduled I will remain. I have been working on a piece for several days, regarding something deeply personal, yet so rewarding. I am so proud of those words, and astonished I had the ability to string them together as such. However, I have decided to shelf that piece for awhile. The circumstances surrounding those words are negative, hateful even, and I wish to guard them until the feelings simmer. I’ve also been told this is the responsible thing to do: not make long-term decisions for short-term emotions.
Until the day those words meet this web browser, I have decided to pull from my bank of finished written work. Although, I am learning no work is truly finished; I’m constantly editing, adjusting, and restarting, this essay is an excerpt from my memoir about my mom’s dad. He passed away when I was in middle school, eleven years old, and these words detail my relationship with him. One day, I hope to expand on his life in my personal work, though those words will never be exploited. His life will remain his, even though he has ceased living it.
My grandpa, Edward, was born in April of 1938, and died in February of 2014. Edward was the third born of six, and grew up in a strict Catholic household, funded by the farm on their property. The rosaries and their Holy Marys, the rice that met their knees as punishment, and the roasted meat following each of their communions were staples at the Kohler Farm. He grew up right above the poverty line in Ohio, and joined the Army, seeking a non-rural lifestyle when he was eighteen. He was stationed in Germany in the 1950s, likely enforcing The Paris Peace Treaties, which were signed as a formal declaration that the war had ended. He married my grandmother, Sue, in 1963. They welcomed two daughters in the 1960s before being surprised with my mom in the mid-1970s. Two years after my mother’s arrival, my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, and would have it until the day she died, nearly forty-five years later. My grandfather remained by her side the entire time.
I don’t remember much about Grandpa K. This fact brings me a great deal of sadness. However, there are several things about him I remember easily. The clearest characteristic is his anxiety. With hindsight as a tool, I started showing signs of anxiety at two. By the time I started kindergarten I was deemed a burden who had no idea what I was doing wrong and why I was different. When I was younger, he was the only living person I knew with anxiety. I studied him from a distance growing up. I wanted to understand how he did it: live a semi-normal life with “nervousness”, the same diagnosis that plagued every decision I made. I was constantly reminded growing up the way I responded to anxiety was burdening, challenging, and selfish, but Grandpa’s was acceptable. I shadowed him before fireworks shows, where he self-isolated and kept sharp, watchful eyes on those he loved. I memorized his routine of checking the front door’s lock. I watched him double and triple check every blind spot before merging or changing lanes. I mimicked the way he smoothed out bills before trading them. I think I genuinely thought if I adapted to his solutions I would be cured. I noticed and noted his every tick, hoping, maybe, I would be worthy of whatever cure he bargained. I wonder if he knew I spent a great deal of our time together absorbing how to deal with his anxiety. These habits lead to great confusion. I learned from him that anxiety was not monolithic. I wondered: Why wasn’t grandpa nervous when mom left the room? Why was grandpa nervous at firework shows? Why did grandpa not talk about his anxiety– but I had to? I put the pieces together in high school, a few years after he passed. His and my anxiety were different. There were different types of anxiety. Mine was genetic; his was a product of war.
It’s a shame I wasn’t more mature at eleven. I would have asked him about growing up during World War II. I would have asked him about his military service in Germany. I would have asked him about Watergate, The Berlin Wall, and Monica Lewinsky. I would have asked him where he was when American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 hit the World Trade Centers. I would have asked him about the news proceedings following the death of John F. Kennedy. I would have asked him about the birth of my mom. I would have asked him about meeting me for the first time. I would have asked him so many questions. It’s a shame I wasn’t more mature at eleven. The finality in death. The loss of knowledge caused by the death of a first person source. The constant curiosity that would follow me about what he would think about the woman I turned into. There are so many questions that will stay as such. It’s a shame I wasn’t more mature at eleven.