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What a shame.
My father died when I was three years old, in a fire at a gig at Howard Johnson's because the propane they were cooking with indoors wasn't turned off properly. He stood up to go down the stairs and fell over the railing instead of all the way down them, so he kept breathing up high and died of smoke inhalation.
Perhaps he tried to get over it, but I believe my grandfather blamed my mother for this. He never thought she was good enough for his son; from Texas, not smart enough, but mostly too fat. Last time I saw him we arrived unannounced at my grandparents' summer cabin on Lake Schoodic in Maine. It had been probably ten years since I saw him before that. He told me to come close so he could look at my eyes, and then said "well, that's not so bad." Then he mostly ignored me. Which I suppose was fair play, since I could never dredge up the motivation to return any of my grandmother's every-holiday (even things like St. Patrick's Day) letters about baby fawns and what her kindergarten class was doing. Except for once, in middle school, when I sent them a huge compilation of my then-current writings, art, and lists of performances and interests. But I haven't written since then, I think... Maybe to tell them where I was going to college.
I've always been more of a Texan Reynolds than a New England Stickney, because they lived in New England and I lived anywhere else. Except for my tireless, overworked grandmother, we mutually ignored each other.
So I feel an overwhelming regret to hear that, after the grandparents rolled their van on the way to Maine and survived it, moved in with my aunt's family in Pennsylvania for a few months, got through cataract surgery, and continued taking short walks every day; after holding up through all that, yesterday my singular remaining grandfather died of an aneurysm in the chest.
What a terrible, terrible shame. I didn't even really know him.
My father died when I was three years old, in a fire at a gig at Howard Johnson's because the propane they were cooking with indoors wasn't turned off properly. He stood up to go down the stairs and fell over the railing instead of all the way down them, so he kept breathing up high and died of smoke inhalation.
Perhaps he tried to get over it, but I believe my grandfather blamed my mother for this. He never thought she was good enough for his son; from Texas, not smart enough, but mostly too fat. Last time I saw him we arrived unannounced at my grandparents' summer cabin on Lake Schoodic in Maine. It had been probably ten years since I saw him before that. He told me to come close so he could look at my eyes, and then said "well, that's not so bad." Then he mostly ignored me. Which I suppose was fair play, since I could never dredge up the motivation to return any of my grandmother's every-holiday (even things like St. Patrick's Day) letters about baby fawns and what her kindergarten class was doing. Except for once, in middle school, when I sent them a huge compilation of my then-current writings, art, and lists of performances and interests. But I haven't written since then, I think... Maybe to tell them where I was going to college.
I've always been more of a Texan Reynolds than a New England Stickney, because they lived in New England and I lived anywhere else. Except for my tireless, overworked grandmother, we mutually ignored each other.
So I feel an overwhelming regret to hear that, after the grandparents rolled their van on the way to Maine and survived it, moved in with my aunt's family in Pennsylvania for a few months, got through cataract surgery, and continued taking short walks every day; after holding up through all that, yesterday my singular remaining grandfather died of an aneurysm in the chest.
What a terrible, terrible shame. I didn't even really know him.
.