Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Way Back Wedneday
I've written about all my grandparents for Way Back Wednesday except for my Pepa. I havn't shared a lot about him, because I probably wasn't as close to him as I was the rest of my grandparents. What I have written about him was that he was abusive to my Nana, and too my mother and her brothers when they were younger. But he was never mean to me. He did quit drinking when I was young, and after my grandparents divorced. I never saw the man my mom and grandmother saw. I think the alcohol must have been the root to all evil. My memories of my Pepa were of his sky blue eyes. Autumn's are very much the same color. They were the bluest eyes I'd ever seen. He was very proud of his family and is one of the big reasons I love geneology today. I loved his stories of his grandmother. I didn't spend a great deal of time with my Pepa. I do remember him being very proud of us every year when we all went to his grandparents family reunion. I wish I knew him more, he had a sadness about him, but also a light shining that was just waiting to come out. He would get very tickled when he would tell stories of his family. Almost all his stories were about his family. So in ways I can identify with him very much. I hate that my grandma, mom, and my uncles had some pretty bad memories of him. I try not to judge to much. You know the saying about walking in someone elses shoes before you make judgements, and I have no idea what he went through. Growing up as I said we didn't see him a lot. I don't know what the alcohol days were like, but I know he lost almost everything in his life. He was close to homeless many times. Sometime as a teenager, I remember he moved next to one of my favorite teacher's. And for my project I went to his house and interviewed him. We had fun that day. I always loved his stories. I think if I could go back I would have gotten to know him more, maybe tried to understand. I know he did go to my grandmother a few years before he died, and asked for her forgiveness. I think she told him something like, it wasn't her forgiveness he needed. But she had already forgiven him. He got prostrate cancer and spent his last year in a nursing home. We went to see him and made video tapes of him telling his stories. There are lots of pictures that come to mind, most of them are just flashes. Like he had body odor, one time when we were little he came over to our house, and sat down, my little sister Sherry who was about 5 at the time, went and got some air freshner, and started spraying him with it. I remember for his birthday each year my mom would give him a new shirt, and I was a plunderer, and would walk down to the old tobacco barn, and in the barn he would put those shirts, never opened, still in their wrappers, and there they would stay never opened. He was a mailman for years, and I remember his car, which was full of newspapers. It was full of them from the bottom to the top. I even went with him once when he delivered them. He was far from tidy. I remember the mess. I also remember his smile. Sometimes I still see it when I see my mom smiling big. Thank you Pepa for bringing my mom into this world, without her I wouldn't be here.
