My grandfather and me

a partial memoir

This article was written as a contribution to the Soaring Twenties (STSC) Symposium. This month’s Symposium theme is “risk.” The STSC is a group of creatives who write, paint, versify and experiment their way through life. Join us!

This morning I thought of my grandfather.

I don’t often think of my grandfather, but today I did.

He loved me, and I loved him.

When I was three or four years old, and probably earlier, he used to hoist me up. He always seemed to have stubble.

“You’ve got sticks on your face!”, I used to say, and we would both chuckle.

Then I would lick his face.

“Feh! Yeucchhh!”, he would say, and we would chuckle some more.

When I was five years old, he taught me how to win at dominoes without exactly cheating. When he needed one with a particular number of dots, he wouldn’t just take one at a time from the pile in the middle of the table. He would put his arms around the pile and scoop the whole lot, thereby almost guaranteeing a win. He would sit there chuckling with evil glee.

Image by Alexa from Pixabay

After he did that the first time, I did it myself. We both sat there chortling.

When I was around 7 years old, he bought me a toy boat. I had it about a week. My parents had a shop and a stall in a street market. I took it along with me and put it on a stall while I nipped into the shop. I was gone for thirty seconds, and when I came out again the boat had gone too.

That was the day I found out that there are people who will steal from children.

When I was ten years old my grandfather died of a heart attack.

That was the day I learnt about death.

Apparently, my grandfather was a very kind and generous man. I’d have liked to have known him better, as an adult. I think we’d have got on well.

I’d have liked to pop in “as I happened to be passing” to check up on him, and have a game of dominoes.

I’d have liked to have said a eulogy at his funeral.

But I was too young, and he was too old.

But at least my memories of him are frozen in time. I still have those.

You might be wondering what this post has to do with the theme of risk. Nothing in itself. The risk for me was in writing it, as I don’t usually write personal stuff like this. I hope you found something in it that resonated with your own experiences.