Although we never actually used a Festivus pole and celebrated the fictitious Seinfeld television show holiday, my father-in-law, Bradley Drews, and I always joked around that we would. After all, who wouldn’t want to celebrate a holiday that features the “Airing of Grievances” and “Feats of Strength”?
Festivus can only end when the head of the household is wrestled to the floor and pinned during the “Feats of Strength.” If we had celebrated the holiday, this would have meant wrestling my father-in-law, or Grandpa as we preferred to call him, to the floor and pinning him. If we had tried, though, we would have failed, because Grandpa was a big man, both in physical appearance and in importance. As a result, Festivus would have continued indefinitely.
But Grandpa is no longer with us, as his nearly two-year battle with colon cancer ended this week. His death leaves everyone who knew him sad, because of his larger-than-life status and the joy he brought to them with his dry sense of humor, his help-everyone attitude and his ability to make people feel good about themselves. But making people sad is the last thing he would have wanted, so I’m going to make sure the Festivus holiday we unofficially celebrated just by joking around about it does continue indefinitely.
While accompanying him during his final days, as countless people came to say goodbyes, many stories were shared about him. These stories amazed me, because looking at my own life I have only a few that could be compared to his many – some I have only because he was involved with them.
In one of his stories as a boy, he convinced his younger brother that the boy was Batman. While doing the Batman song, he told his younger brother to jump off the roof of the house and employ his Batman gliding abilities. The boy did so, quickly falling to the ground and breaking his arm.
Many years later, with three girls of his own, he convinced one of their friends – a city girl visiting their country home – that the dinner he was making was going to be good, because the roadkill he was using was fresh. I understand the look of horror on her face was priceless.
Another time, while fishing with his brother-in-law, a man who thought he was the ultimate fisherman, Grandpa quietly taunted him with each big fish he reeled in as his brother-in-law failed to generate even a bite. Grandpa believed this type of teasing was great, but only if it could be backed up with actions and not just words, as he proved over and over again that day.
One of my favorite stories is the time he went through a fast food drive-through and talked as though he was “breaking up,” much like the fast food workers sound through the junky speaker systems they have to use. He and the guy he was with were apparently laughing so hard about this they could hardly place their order.
Plenty of his stories involve my son, his grandson Braden. When Braden dropped a hat light he had gotten him into a river, Grandpa knew he needed to rescue it. On his way down the riverbank, he slid into a pile of mud, messing himself enough that Grandma said he needed to take his clothes off before getting into her vehicle. So, on the way back, he rode in the vehicle wearing nothing but his underwear. The picture she snapped of this spectacle was made even more hilarious by the smirk under his big moustache, a moustache he was never without and that he told his daughters when they were younger he had because he had no upper lip.
At his favorite place, his cottage on Spring Lake near Wautoma, he had a big treasure chest, which he convinced Braden he got after battling pirates on the lake and beating them in a sword battle. Braden loves telling this story to everyone who asks.
Once at the lake, he planted a fake skeleton on the bottom of the lake, proudly boating people over it and telling them to look at it, often causing them to gasp in semi-horror until realizing it wasn’t real.
I could fill this entire newspaper with more stories, as they are truly endless. Before he left us, he said if we need some good stories about him we should just call one of his friends who apparently have many more that will make us laugh for years to come.
But Grandpa wasn’t all funny stories. Simply put, he was the greatest man I’ve ever known. His actions in helping others made him a loud presence, despite his tendency to be quieter than most people. I can’t count the number of times I saw him helping others – even when he wasn’t physically up to it – and making sure their needs were met before his.
When my own father died when I was 21, I didn’t know how to deal with it. I shut down and didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t until I met Jenny, my wife, and he became involved in my life that I opened up again. He knew I needed that father figure, and he quickly became it. As a result, I became the son he didn’t have, although I didn’t have any of the know-how skills he had an abundance of.
There’s an expression that suggests women marry guys just like their fathers. I might disagree with this, and say guys marry women with fathers just like them. I only hope I can be half the man he was.
In the “Airing of Grievances” during Festivus, people are supposed to let it all out and tell others how they’ve disappointed that person over the past year. With Grandpa, though, that’s something we could never have done because disappointing others is something he didn’t do. It’s a model we all hope to live up to as we continue our lives and remember how valuable he was to us.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, July 1, 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment