Mourning My Grandfather

My apologies if these thoughts sound scattered. They are. It is the passing of a human who has impacted many others in a significant manner, and such a matter has broad-reaching ramifications that can be difficult to encapsulate via mere words. Some paragraphs may sound out of order or context. I was writing through tears and attempting to document as words came to me, so I do apologize.

I wrote this five days ago and posted it to Facebook...

"Grandpa passed away last night. The same guy who grew up in the London bombings (same age as the children in those Narnia books), who in his early 20’s left his job in London to take a job offer in Kenya, who started a family by proposing to my late grandmother in London via a letter sent by post while he was still living there in Africa, then moved around to Philadelphia, went back to Africa on sabbatical and stumbled into writing the charter for a school for women there (and that school is still running to this day), the guy who later moved to work for Boston University and gave them financial success, the guy who saw and did so much with clean wit and intelligence, the guy who needn’t apply for a job since that first one in London because he was so sought after, the guy who (along with his wife) would insist every Christmas that rather than get them any gifts, we should instead buy a goat or pay to have a well dug for the less fortunate in the African nations where they themselves had seen that poverty in person, the guy who (along with his wife) at Christmas would also require us to study scripture and be able to answer Biblical questions so that the real focus was always on that rather than gifts or money, the guy who set up trust funds so that I and the rest of my siblings never had to worry about being able to afford an education (and now I am a doctor with no debt), the guy who even as his cognition began to leave him would continue to make witty replies and comments in conversation, the same guy who has been waiting patiently to see Jesus and his wife again in person, that guy has finally finished with this particular race and has been called heavenward.

More caution about covid would have surely given us more time with him, which I would have loved, though I recognize that that is also a selfish thought. Over a year ago, when asked what his New Years resolution was, he replied that he was in the waiting room. It took awhile, during which time I was fortunate enough to learn so much about his life, but the waiting is finally done."

I have never had to process grief before. This man was an absolute legend in ways that I will never be able to credit or articulate, and he always gave glory to Jesus when flattery was directed his way.

Family got together for what I refer to as "Covid Christmas". Weeks later, my grandpa passed away from one or more family members who are in denial about the reality of the pandemic we currently face. I wrote the above words after I saw that my sister had posted something about how grandpa gave her everything. I had learned so much about him in recent past that I wanted to share, so much that I needed to post this. And of course, it does nothing to capture his wit and charm. His favorite restaurant was a local Thai place. We would go to Koung Thai and if any waiter or waitress was unfamiliar with him, he would establish is running jokes, one of which was that he was an employee who worked from 12 to one each day with an hour off for lunch. If it did not naturally come up in conversation, I would ask him about his hours because he truly cherished these little jokes. He would then always tip a given waitress or waiter with a separate $5 (more or less, depending) with a Christian tract. After we ate, he would wait to make sure that the owner was there to accept payment. Then he would deal with the check and crack further jokes about employee discounts and such. These jokes were so recurring and consistent that for Christmas last year, we were going to have a Koung Thai polo shirt made for him, but when we asked the owner for some form of a copy of the logo and he learned that it was for our grandfather, he simply gave us a shirt.

Until just months ago, I assumed that the reason why he had traveled to African nations and other places around the globe was because he had done some missionary work here and there. But from what I understand, this was all a result of business. He was an accountant who wrote up reports, which was apparently a skill that was in high demand at the time. I assumed that he was a missionary because sharing this love of Jesus is what defined his life and the life of his wife. 

When I say "until just months ago", I am referring to the results of this pandemic. Some people are in denial regarding the reality of the current horrors. One week last year, the death tolls from Covid-19 hit 100,000 and this was the point at which I was no longer willing to tolerate family's denial of reality. Though my siblings advised against it (because although I was right, they recognized how stubborn my father would be), I gave my father and stepmother an ultimatum: they would act in accordance with reality and take measures against this global pandemic, or I would no longer associate with them. They chose the latter option. At my request, my brother then arranged for us to have meals with my grandfather that did not include my father nor stepmother. Over the course of such meals, I learned most of my grandfather's life story. This revelation of his life story resulted because he would normally be interrupted by my father or stepmother or anyone else. On the first such of these occasions, my grandfather shared with us a card which was a prepaid ticket to his eventual cremation.

When some things were a "maybe" for him, he said that it was a "yes" or "no" from his late wife, my grandmother. Though my memories of her are a strong Scottish accent chiding us with "naughty naughty", he held her in such remarkably high esteem that I regret never learning her story like I was able to learn his. It took a global pandemic for circumstances to allow for me to finally learn these things from my grandfather, but I digress... 

He regularly taught a Bible study on Wednesday nights. Like much of that side of my family, he was incredibly focused on a specific interpretation of the book of Revelation. This admittedly disappointed me somewhat, because I believe that a book with such a great quantity of metaphorical content and references should probably not be taken as specific guidance. That being said, this was an elderly British gentleman sharing with fellow elderly people about the end times, which is a great comfort to those who are nearing the endpoints of their own mortality.

His image so readily comes to mind. The short term and the long term memories fight for dominion, as he is such a memorable figure in my life. He would arrange for all of his family to be there for Christmas. "There" in this case would, in my memory, be in Florida. His highly intelligent family had naturally become financially successful, so as a grandchild, I would always be privileged to stay in a fancy hotel where we could potentially charge items to the room. And we would go to Disney World and Universal Studios. What a life.

He told us a little about how he grew up. As mentioned via that Facebook post, he grew up during the London bombings. For roughly a year, per his testimony, they had a metallic kitchen table that, when the alarms went off, would lower from its suspensions to cover the family underneath in case of their home being bombed. The children would all sleep underneath this lowered metal piece sometimes. He said that it was something in the area of eight months that this went on, largely because their coastal town was among the first that a German bomber would encounter on a flight westward toward Britain. Unlike those children in the Narnia books, my grandfather did not start out with such privilege as to be able to move to a home in the country. He and his family endured. 

He also told us about a particular occasion in Africa. If I am not mistaken, this particular event happened in Uganda. He was a young adult man driving with his children in the car in Africa, and he passed what he recognized as a rogue elephant, an elephant without a herd. This rogue elephant began to charge in his direction, and much to his horror, his car stalled. He struggled to start it again. His children were in the back seat, blissfully unaware of the giant creature stampeding their way. He kept trying the key and it finally turned over, and he was able to escape such a menacing moment.

That time he was living in Philadelphia and went on sabbatical to Kenya, he sounded as if he had had no particularly ambitious plans. But then someone there was founding a school for girls and my grandfather was asked to write the charter for the school. They deemed this charter to be so well-written that they sent it to other new schools across the nation of Kenya to serve as templates. My grandfather would stop and emphasize just how critical such an education was for these girls, that they otherwise had no route to independence. It gave them a path to freedom. Even as he spoke proudly of being a part of such an endeavor, he also said that his name was not on any of these schools or enterprises. Notoriety was not his goal.

Like my father, my grandfather was one of a tiny few who passed his CPA exam on his first attempt. I say this to emphasize that this was a man of significant intellect, in addition to his ambition to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. I achieved a doctorate in medicine, but with relation to our family, I think that work ethic is the main positive characteristic that I managed to inherit.

This is all that came to mind tonight. I no doubt forgot some incredible portion of my grandfather's legacy, but this I hope is an understandable part of a grandson's documentation of a remarkable human's history. I wrote this through tears, but he is in the best company now.

EDIT: Added a few things here and there, including details about the school in Africa. I normally do not edit my posts, but neither do I normally share them.

2020 Reflections Pt 2

Then it was my birthday. I met up with a dear friend to go camping in Oklahoma, where we partook of a $100 bottle of speyside scotch. We talked about our faiths (he had lost his) and I struggled to fathom the types of people who would claim to be Christian and yet were unwilling to inconvenience their lives in any significant way that might save the lives of those in their community. Questions of faith, ones in which I am forced to confront my own beliefs and reckon with their inadequacies, these are things which I appreciate.

I had recently taken a test to try to get my doctorate before I turned 30. No. I was not speaking to my father, but I went to his (well, technically the family's) lake house for my birthday weekend with my podcast team and my sister. When my blood mother was in charge, the rules were much the same, but the micromanagement was notably different. We kept it cleaner than we found it, as usual. In any case, I was very stressed throughout the weekend and had a small breakdown among my friends, which was graciously tolerated with apologies.

Following my birthday weekend, well, what else has changed? That girl I had told that I liked? She claimed to be anti-mask, and said that I need not be so pro-mask just because I was a medical student. Beyond simply being a medical student, the simple oath that we both swore to prevent harm should have kept a mask on both our faces, but needless to say, my affections for her all but ceased immediately.

Then July happened. Then August. Then September. October. November. With each month, more deaths were listed, and less people seemed to care. When holidays came, I reaffirmed that I would not be present for gatherings of human bodies. Need I remind anyone that this is completely reasonable and sane, and objections to such require significant qualifications to be considered otherwise. But of course, family pushed through, and now my father and stepmother and her family all have this virus infecting their bodies. As of yet, we lack the knowledge concerning how it will affect their lungs and the rest of their bodies in the future. As of the most recent update, my father is still in denial about being infected at all.

When siblings went to family Christmas, were exposed to Sars-Cov-2, and then returned back to the place where I live with my mother, who is in an age group which is at greater risk, I was displeased. That, of course, is a mild way to put it. They casually mentioned being exposed to people who later tested positive for the disease. They remained in living areas of the house as we tried to continue functioning as if a deadly virus were not in our midst. This of course ended when I finally moved out to one of my mother's Airbnb's in Canton. This, of course is white privilege at play. I have a safe unoccupied place to visit to isolate from the virus with many modern amenities and no significant fear of the virus.

2020 Reflections Pt 1

Ah, 2020. What a year. It began as most years do, with the horrors of climate change doing their work through consuming Australia in flames. And I believe that somewhere near that time period, people in Beijing (or possibly Hong Kong? No internet as I write this) were protesting the government and fighting for their right to wear masks, to protect their identities.

As for me, I was finally applying for my test permit to retake the Step 2. Little did I know that that two-week process would literally not be complete until Christmas Day. I had auditioned for America’s Got Talent but messed up a little in my performance, so that was unfortunate. On the bright side, I would soon run across a Facebook post asking for singers who were either very good or very bad to be on a new tv show. Ah, January. I had allowed myself to like a girl, a former high fashion model who was now working as a nurse. As it was January, I had already begun work on her Valentine’s Day gift of various mini bottles of scotch.

So I sent that gift and then went on a cruise with some family. There had been two cruise ships with Covid-19 cases thus far, but these were around the east coast, so I for one saw little chance of these issues affecting us. However, it spooked my brothers, and one sister could not make it because her boss, who would later be arrested by Interpol for having a 17-year old killed in Brazil, decided at the last minute that she needed to stay. So my mom’s boyfriend and friend joined us. The friend is a psychologist, and at one point we would discuss my sister’s psychiatric diagnosis. Narcissistic Personality Disorder was the winner, and what an uncomfortable thing to recognize in your own genetics. The cruise was fun. It ended and it was then Valentine’s Day, and that girl I liked let me know that she appreciated the gift.

I flew through the audition process for that singing show. Turns out that it would be hosted by Dr. Ken, a role model in my life in some ways, and certainly a comedy influence. The network loved me and I was to begin filming later in March, so I would need to start my trip to SE Asia a little later than planned. Then a dear friend visited the area and stayed with us while he played a show and then we went out for drinks. I met a nice young woman who gave me her number so that we could go out on her boat and go to karaoke together. I had been in need of a local karaoke buddy so I could unwind after studying. This was early March as I recall, because this was the last weekend when it was still considered safe to go out. Then the world went into lockdown. St Patrick’s Day events were cancelled. I got the call that the show would be delayed. I got a refund on my flights to Bangkok.

And that is more or less when life stopped.

We went into lockdown for a few weeks, during which time the federal government did little to nothing to solve the current issues. Conspiracy theories prevailed and spread widely. In late May, I told my father and stepmother that if they will not do the basics of complying with basic public health recommendations, I would no longer partake of their company. Much to my surprise, they chose to disregard the health of others rather than have the pleasure of my company. Aside from a few holiday texts, I have not communicated with my father since. They, meanwhile, have sent some very insulting and condescending messages to me. Shortly thereafter, I told that girl that I liked her romantically and gave her a specifically worded poem so as to preserve friendships if the feelings were not mutual.