Filed under: Parents, Relationships, Single life | Tags: award, blog, compatible, complaint, grandfather, house, hugh laurie, misery, sugar
I’m alone. For the first time in weeks, it seems. My Grandfather is returning to his native Dublin tomorrow, which means my stint as best friend/carer has come to an end. I’m sad to see him go, but thrilled to know that the next few days are mine, and mine alone.
We’re incredibly compatible for an 81 year old man and his 24 year old granddaughter. We have similar tastes in literature, a common disinterest in TV, a shared love of travel and an emphatic hatred of Bono. He would be a wonderful companion if it wasn’t for his negativity. Maybe he’s entitled to a degree of cynicism after eight decades of life on earth, but there’s only so much criticism I can bear listening to on any given day.
Today, lunch was too big. Portion sizes, everywhere in Ireland, are too large. He finished his meal regardless. The tea was cold, after adding milk to it and leaving it sitting on the table for twenty minutes. Lukewarm. This was mentioned a few times throughout the day, until he had a hot cup of tea in my house to satisfy his craving. We had coffee in a nearby hotel with my parents. His hot chocolate was too frothy, and too chocolaty. He ate three lumps of brown sugar (the snazzy ones, crystallised and attached to a little stick to be melted into coffee at your convenience) and two slices of cake, then complained that he was over-full.
He made a remark a few years ago that has stayed with me since. He believes that some people are lucky enough to be constitutionally happy, and others aren’t. Happiness, to him, seems unobtainable, alien. I admit to a few years of feeling the same way, and I wish I knew what changed. As far as I can see now, happiness is a choice. You can let yourself see the beauty of the world around you, or you can ignore it and hold onto the misery you’re bound to experience.
How do you teach an elderly man that the world is bursting with goodness?
In other happy-making news, the lovely SSG has listed me as deserving of this:
The Rules:
1. Post the award on your blog.
2. Pass the award on to five more other bloggers.
3. Post these rules for your recipients.
The nicest thing about an award like this? That lovely sense of community. The realisation that there are other people out there who spend as much time as I do, sitting on their couches with their laptops on their knees, sharing their thoughts with the world and commenting on mine. Thank you, SSG.
I read a lot of blogs. When I find a blog I love, I’ll happily spend hours reading backwards through the posts, clicking every link available. I’m nosy like that. Here are the five I love the most:
22 Words – because this man gets to the point with 22 words or less. He loses me a little with the God stuff, but I’m okay with that.
The Northern Belle – for her honest coverage of her relationship, her wardrobe and her cellulite.
A Free Man- completely loses me with the sport bits, but that can be fogiven due to his otherwise humourous and insightful commentary of everyday things like parents and angry birds.
I have two guilty pleasures at the moment – blogs I read for the sake of keeping in touch with my wild side, which has been keeping its head down lately. These are Sequins and Glitter and Y Tu Hermano Tambien. You know you want to.
Time to rustle up some food and get stuck into House. Quality time with Hugh Laurie before the weekend ends!
Filed under: Parents, philosophy | Tags: convalescence, depression, family, galileo, grandfather, problem, resolution, single parent
My grandfather is a wonderful man. Sadly, he wasn’t so wonderful when my mother was growing up. She suffered mental and emotional abuse at the hands of an alcoholic, depressed father who was miserable in his job and trapped by his family commitments. His own father, a single parent after his wife died at a young age, was an unskilled labourer on a low and unreliable income with four children to look after. The pressure on my grandfather, the eldest, to succeed in school and find a permanent, pensionable job had such a great effect on him that he is still recovering from it.
To me, he is the inspiration that has led me to lead an unconventional life. To value my freedom and happiness above all other things, to take responsibility for myself and my ambitions at an early age. He has always been supportive and encouraging, possibly in an attempt to make up for his shortcomings as a father.
I’ve always been aware of the strained relationship he has with my mother, and since my grandmother died two years ago that relationship has been tested to its limits. Although I understand that my mother sees a different person than I do when we look at him, I have to admit that her reluctance to travel to his bedside during hospital stays, or provide him with company during periods of loneliness, has infuriated me. Last night I somehow resolved our different opinions as we discussed his plans for convalescence on being discharged from the hospital today.
I realised that we’ll never agree, that she’ll never love him the way I do, and that there’s nothing anyone can say or do to change the dynamics between them. It’s a personal journey that we have no part in, and something that they can only ever resolve between themselves. Instead of arguing, disagreeing or confronting her, last night I simply agreed with her, and I can already feel the relief of that unspoken tension dissipating.
Ah, the simplicity. I agreed last night that there is no point in considering my mothers’ home as a possible recuperation pad for my grandfather. I emphatically pointed out that there is no point in her feeling guilty about it, and no point in pretending things are any different to the way there are. I encouraged all present to discuss alternative options, and we agreed on a Plan A and a Plan B that suited everyone involved.
As my mother realises that the next generation are willing to take responsibility for her father, she might also realise that she is free to work on her relationship with him. She is still a child herself when he is around; she hides behind inane anecdotes and trivial conversation to avoid her personality or intelligence being judged by Daddy. He loves her, and is proud of her achievements (and the beautiful grandchildren she has produced!) but they can’t seem to communicate these feelings to one another.
“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it within himself.” Galileo
I’ve learnt a lot of strange stuff from my father. I can’t wait to teach it to my kids someday.
He taught me ‘when you get off the train, walk in the same direction as everyone else’. I still do. Works in airports too.
He told me ‘unplug the toaster before you ever stick a fork in it’.
And the invaluable, underappreciated gem that is: ‘when the toilet roll is wrong, and you think some eejit in the loo roll factory put it together arseways, just flip the top sheet over to the back – fixed.’
He taught me all the keyboard shortcuts I’ll ever need to know.
He taught me about the stars (that they’re worth looking at). He taught me about volume (that cool trick with the glass, the tissue, and the basin of water).
He taught me that a potato will bake faster if you stick a nail through the middle.
My Grandfather taught me the most important lesson I’ll ever learn. After breaking up with a fella I’d lived with for three years, he sat down and told me that a breakup is like a bereavement. That you’re saying goodbye to the life you had as well as the future you thought you’d share. That day, he told me that the most important quality you should look for in another person is integrity. He’s never been wrong, and at 81 years old that’s quite a record.
