The glue that held our family together

Saturday's visit with the old boy

This post will be a bit of a hodge-podge.  Classes are over for the semester, my mother in law is back home in Tampa and I finally feel like posting again.  Thoughts of Gumpy are never far away from the front of my mind.  I still cry occasionally and yearn for his counsel.  It's been almost two years, and while I know that his suffering ended the day he died, it sometimes feels like my pain is just beginning.

A colleague forwarded a great blog post to me yesterday, I read Cranking on my phone in the garage because there was something in Jer's message that compelled me to read the post immediately.  I couldn't help but relate to much of Merlin Mann's story.  Sure, I wasn't a kid when Gumpy died, but I can relate to the feeling of drifting away from the things that I truly find important in life.  While I am fortunate to be writing about the city I love and pursuing a degree that fascinates me, I still need reminders to be take a few minutes out to appreciate my family.  Gladys was a little surprised when I walked upstairs and hugged her. I always give her a peck on the cheek and a hug when I get home, but today I needed that hug to last just a little longer.

Saturday it dawned on me that Gumpy truly was the glue that held our little family together.  Instinctively I guess I knew that but the events of a normally happy mini-reunion at the Syrup Festival really made me take notice.  None of us would have dreamed of behaving the way we did if he were still alive.  We all let our pettiness and bitterness of arguments new and old taint the day.

There is always tension in any family, ours is no exception.  Where we were once very different was in the way Gumpy would handle it.  His laugh was infectious and it was hard to stay sore at someone when he could get you to join in on the laughter.  If that didn't work, outrageous statements like, "that will make you a man before your mother" would be leveled at the offending party, which always made us chuckle.

It was his way of making sure we all stayed together.  His biggest worry when he died was that we all stay talking, that we all remember we are family and that we all stuck together.  My grandparents purposefully paid for our immediate family to spend the weekend in St. Ignace, MI with them ostensibly for their 50th anniversary.  Gumpy's real reason was to make sure that we knew his nephew Frank and that we had time with my Uncle Jim and his family.  His family was his proudest accomplishment and his greatest torment.

This isn't a post to air the family's dirty laundry, rather I am lamenting Gumpy's ability to make us all laugh, to come together and to stop the games that pull us apart.  He was our carpenter's glue if you will. After reading Mann's post and reflecting on the events of our family time at the farm together, I couldn't get my mind off the void I still feel every time I think about my grandfather.  

Ironically, when I was a teenager, he was afraid I would never be able to laugh again.  I was always so dour.  His patience with me showed me how to laugh again.  He had a great sense of humor and timing. I miss the nicknames.  I miss the jokes.  I miss the outrageous statements.  I miss going up town for a crappy tasting cup of coffee at Ken's Standard Station with him.  I miss the pancake breakfasts at the fire barn during the Syrup Festival with him.  I miss the way he would clap his hands when he was ready to leave.  I miss his smile.  I miss hearing him admonish me not to strain my milk.

Most of all, I miss his ability to bring us all together.