Happy Birthday, Grandpa Fred

My mother was 66 years old when she died. Her mother, the only grandmother I really knew, died when she was 70. I’m 68 now, and thankfully, a whole lot healthier than either one of them were. Not that I wanted them to be unhealthy. You know what I mean.

I grew up with Grandma Gertie and Grandpa Willie at my side. I knew at some point in time that Grandpa Willie was my step-grandfather. The step part never mattered to me. I loved him so much and he showered all of us with love and good humor. It was years after Mom died in ’86 that I even began to wonder who my real grandfather really was. Willie was gone by then, too.

Eventually I learned that Fred Shea was the man who cared for my grandmother when she was just 18 and won a train trip to San Francisco from Missouri as the grand prize in her hometown beauty pageant. Grandma’s father had arranged for his brother Fred, who was living in SF and working for the railroad, to look after young Gertie. Love bloomed, and in the way of the world, uncle and niece fell in love. My mom was born in the spring of 1920.

Sometime, somehow, in the next 15 or so years, Fred was out of the picture.

I tracked down his death certificate. He died in a hospital in San Francisco, from cirrhosis of the liver when he was 63 years old. It was December 23, 1945, 6 days before my parents celebrated their marriage in Grandma Gertie and Grandpa Willie’s home across the bay.

I’ll never know if Mom knew where her dad was. It makes me so sad. Maybe no one he loved knew where he was.

While looking through old pictures just a few years ago, I stumbled upon a picture of my very young and beautiful grandmother sitting next to a strikingly handsome man on a blanket on San Francisco’s foggy Ocean Beach. I knew in that instant I was looking at my grandfather. I also knew why my parents named my brother Fred.

Fred and Gertie

I jumped in my car, sped to the office supply store to get the best magnifying glass they had on hand and rushed back home. When I glared through my powerful new lens, I was gazing on the mirror image of my brothers and my sons.

Finally, I got to meet my own Grandpa Fred.

Tomorrow is his birthday. October 1, 1883. Happy Birthday, Grandpa Fred.

 

Him Puts You on the Naughty List

This morning, all before 8:30 am.

“Mimi, I can’t find my shoe,” Peyton, 6 years old, tells me, moaning, while standing in the dining room twirling the one shoe she does have round and round by the shoe laces. A perfect example of gravity if I ever saw one.

“Keep looking, Peyton. It has to be somewhere,” I answered, right before I walked into her bedroom to see the elusive shoe sitting all by itself, minding its own business on the top of her bed.

Brooklyn, 9 years old, just had to have my cell phone,”I swear I won’t play games, Grandma. I’m ready for school, like you said. I need to use the calculator.”

“What do you need to calculate?” I asked.

“What’s half of fifteen?” she said.

Oh, man, I thought, turning my head so she wouldn’t see my laughing face. “Oh, let’s see — seven and a half.”

She sighed loudly and gave up on the phone idea.

Driving to school a bit later, we saw three deer grazing leisurely on the lawn at the intersection of Coombsville Road and 4th Avenue.

The car burst with exclamations.

“Deer!! Deer!! Deer!! Mimi, Grandma!! See the deer??!!”

Yep.

After I dropped his sisters off at school, 3 1/2 year old Micah and I drove past the deer in the grass again.

“Deer! Mimi, see the deer?”

“I do, that’s so cool, Micah.”

“That’s Santa’s house,” he told me, very seriously, “Really, it’s Santa’s house, with  reindeer.”

Laughing inside, I asked him if he was sure.

“Yes, if you’re bad, him puts you on the naughty list.”

“He does?” I responded, eyeing him in the rearview mirror.

IMG_2160

“Yes. And if you’re good, him gets you on the good list.”

“Yes, you’re right. He sure does.”

A few minutes later, still in the car, he announces, “Mimi, last time I called you Mom.”

Evidently letting me know he called me by the wrong name, and he really does know the difference.

Still in the car…

“Jyles’ mom says I look like my dad,” he said, giggling, “I look like my dad?!”

I can just imagine him thinking about how his dad really looks – to him – and how in the world can he look like that?

OMG.

The rewards I bank for being able to hang out with grandkids every day of the week.