I started writing a version of this blog about a month ago. I didn’t know what angle to come from though. Last week I found out some news about my Grandfather and for some reason today I had some clarity in what to write. This post is for me to express my thoughts and it will be more serious than, well all of my posts. Last Thursday I received an email from my mom telling my Grandfather was in the hospital. He suffered an aneurism in his aorta and while they were running test they found cancer in his lungs and liver. The initial report is he has 9 months to live. On Sunday I was speaking with my mother and she informed me that they are also running tests to make sure he does not have tuberculosis. She also said that because of his age and the condition he is in there is nothing they can do for him. The tests the doctors ran to get a more accurate timeframe on the cancer have not come in, so we won’t know how aggressive it is for a couple of days.
So why am I telling you this, I don’t really know yet. I don’t know exactly how I feel about it. Some of you may be thinking how someone doesn’t know how they feel about finding out their grandfather is dying. Well I’ll start in the beginning. Growing up my family never lived near the rest of our family. My mom and dad are both from the Midwest. My mom grew up in Michigan and my dad lived in Indiana and Iowa. So it was always a big deal to visit my grandparents and see my cousins. Every Summer I spent a week or two at my dad’s parent’s house, I looked forward to those weeks every year. Sometimes during that trip I would meet up with my mom’s parents for a couple of days. I remember one summer my grandfather let me cut the grass which was exciting because he had a riding lawnmower. I’m 29 and I still think its fun to ride on a riding lawnmower so at 10 this was awesome. My grandparents also bought me my first Michigan hat, which if you know me altered my college sports allegiances for the rest of my life. I remember the years my family was in Indiana at my dad’s parent’s house for Christmas we would take a day to drive to Michigan and celebrate with my mom’s parents. One thing my grandfather always had was a Michigan flag flying from his flag pole. One year we were at my dad’s parents house and my mom’s family came there to celebrate Christmas with us and my grandparents bought me a stuffed Michigan Wolverine and I remember my grandmother telling me it was to remind me to keep my grades up so I could get into college at Michigan. After that the rest of my memories seem to revolve around hospital visits when my grandma was sick before she passed away and when my cousin and her son passed away. There are other happy memories but I don’t have the space to write all of them but these were some of the ones that have always stuck out to me.
In 2002 my grandfather decided to get behind the wheel of his van drunk and got into an accident killing the driver of the other car. My grandfather is an alcoholic, something my parents never told me until this accident. My mom grew up around it but protected us from that. She wanted us to see him as our grandfather and not a man with a substance addiction. I was 21 at the time or close to it. I was turning the age where I no longer had to find someone to get me alcohol. I could just buy it myself. I was also in college which meant I drank a lot. My dad would always say things to me when I was home like you need to watch your drinking, your mom worries about you. I always passed it off saying I wasn’t doing anything he didn’t do in college. In my head I always took my parents comments about drinking to mean, “don’t drink, we think you’re an alcoholic like your grandfather.” My response to this was to drink and drink a lot to prove to them I could handle it and wasn’t like my grandfather. This led me down a path of terrible decisions. I was drinking a lot and almost every night. I would drive and not think anything of it. To me I felt like I was sober enough to do it. Although looking back all I was doing is heading down the same path my grandfather went down at some point in his life. I eventually talked to a guy at school and he told me I was far from where I thought I was, but it was a good thing I had come to talk to him because it meant I knew what I was doing and knew it was wrong. He worked with me and helped me resolve a lot of issues I had with my grandfather. At the time I didn’t want to talk to him ever again. I didn’t understand that he had a disease. What helped me at the time was I had a strong support system with my friends and family who were never going to let me go over the edge with my drinking. (This is not to say I don’t drink anymore, it’s to say that I saw a pending problem and took care of it. Don’t get me wrong there are times I thought I was playing with fire which is the same time I understood my mom’s concerns about my drinking.) Also around that time I received a letter from my grandfather. The letter was basically him apologizing to me for what he put me through (and my family) because of the decisions he made. It was also odd because I was the only one in my house who got a letter from him. I didn’t know why he chose me to apologize too. I think one of my cousins also received a similar letter but I’m not sure. Later I’m going to come back to this letter. My grandfather was put in prison for a couple of years where he did get sober.
A little bit after college I eventually forgave my grandfather for what he put our family through with his decision to drive drunk that day. I realized the only thing that made us different is I didn’t have an accident and I didn’t get caught when I made a stupid decision. One day driving to work I was listening to the radio and Chris Farley’s brother was on talking about a book him and some of Chris’s family and friends wrote about Farley’s life and struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. I soon became obsessed with learning about addictions. In the book a lot of his friends talked about how they would help Chris stop and get clean, but eventually he would fall off the wagon again. His friends eventually got tired of continuing to pick him up. Eventually Chris partied too hard one night and died from an overdose. This book was the first time I thought of alcoholism as a disease and not a personal choice. I also started watching Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab show a few years ago. While it is enjoyable to watch those people in rehab it also opened my eyes to the life of an addict. Dr. Drew always preached having a support group and worked with people to rebuild bonds with family to ensure they would have a strong support group to help in their sobriety. He also stressed sober living environments for many people to keep them away from the triggers that set off their addictions. This is when I realized my grandfather wasn’t doing this stuff to hurt us on purpose. It was the addiction that was making the decisions for him. Some of you may think that makes me naïve, but I would much rather believe my grandfather loves me then think he wants to hurt me.
This morning was when it really kind of clicked for me. I was thinking about the letter. When my grandfather was sober he realized he made mistakes that affected his family. He couldn’t call me because he was in prison so he mailed me a handwritten letter to apologize. I can’t imagine how tough that was for him. I know my grandfather loves me and I love him. I don’t want him to pass on without me telling him that. I don’t want there to be regrets and unresolved issues. If I’m not able to make it out to see him before he passes at least my last memory of my grandfather was a good one. Last April my older brother, two uncles, grandfather and I spent the afternoon together eating together, telling stories, and watching the Tigers play while my mom and the rest of the women were at my sister’s bridal shower. It was a perfect afternoon, when we got to my grandfather’s apartment he had pictures of all of his grandchildren up and you could see how proud of us he was. So maybe I do know how I feel about this after all.
If you made it this far I want to thank you for reading I just needed to express some emotions. I’d also like to ask everyone to keep my family and my grandfather in their prayers as we go through the next few months.
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