I listened to a voicemail from my late grandpa yesterday. I suppose it was a morbid curiosity. It had been years since I heard his voice, but managed to have the wherewithal to save the last voicemail he ever left. It isn’t anything special, he simply asks me to give him a call, in a slightly annoyed voice, an awkward pause in between his words.
My grandpa was gregarious. Used to being in charge, and getting what he wanted, my grandpa was a person of action, who couldn’t quite understand the inaction of others. But, he wasn’t a tyrant. He had a generous heart, and a humorous spirit, both often cranked to 11. I suppose some people could have called him the jolly tyrant, because often, the volume of his personality and ideas overshadowed and usurped the wants of others. I remember lots of times being annoyed that he couldn’t just leave people alone.
But also, he was a deeply positive influence in my life. One I didn’t realize until the final months of his battle with cancer. These sorts of life events cause a person to look back, and through that examination, I came to understand just how much he took care of me, kept me safe from certain unfortunate childhood experiences. How, when I outgrew my bedroom furniture that he bought, it was him to replace it. How he set up a college fund. How he often was an invisible resource for so many things. I spent nearly every weekend with him and my grandmother. He would pick me up from school on Friday. It was my favorite day— the one day I didn’t spend an hour riding a bus and being teased for being the fat kid. On Fridays, I was spared the soul crushing taunts of southern Alabama rural county kids. Believe me, those kids are brutal.
The bottom line is my grandfather had a profound and at the exact same time, almost imperceptible impact on my life. He was a big person, a loud person, but boy did he give a damn. He had deep belief in the idea of family, and stepped up to fill roles that were missing in ways I saw, and others I’m sure I’ll never know about.
And so, something as simple as a voicemail can really undo a person. When I hear it, I don’t hear the frustration at not being able to get a hold of me right away, but the angst of my grandpa losing the ability to speak. The cancer slowly removed his communication, then look his physical faculties over the course of several months. It forced him to sit with his ultimate end for far too many hours. It wasn’t fair for a person who wanted to skydive again, who had so many people they still wanted to care for, a woodworking shop they had just built to make gifts, grandkids they wanted to laugh with.
Each year of elementary school, he and my grandmother would drive 45 minutes to film me and my siblings getting on the bus. I hated it. I was embarrassed, quiet, angry, every single time. He was exuberant and incessant, his camcorder in my face before 8:30 in the morning.
I miss him. I wish I could thank him.