my grandfather

I dreamt about my my maternal grandfather last night. He’s been gone a long time now so I wonder what prompted the dream. I remember when he died; I was 16 and remember only feeling numbness – and then terrible guilt when my brother and I giggled at his funeral. I didn’t know then that I’d miss him and that as male influences go, he’d be the one. Regarding funeral arrangements, my grandmother decided on a compromise and had a memorial service at the local Anglican church. She was Catholic but he was an atheist.

My grandfather was born in south London in the Edwardian era: a time of such moral rigidity that his shaky start was something of a cloud over his head for who knows how long. His father, of good family, got a working-class girl “in the family way”, and subsequently married her. Not too unusual as these things go. However, when my grandfather was a baby they became estranged and one day Grandpa’s dad scooped him up and carted him off to his sister’s family in Brighton. I know very few of the details, but considering the social climate of the time, I guess his mother had little recourse but to accept the situation. I don’t know if he ever saw her again. He was raised with his cousin and was a dutiful nephew, I’m sure. He was very attached to his aunt, but was not a happy young man. She died when he was a newly-qualified chartered accountant with Price-Waterhouse. With her gone he took the next overseas posting that came up: Mexico City.

He lived in Mexico for most of the rest of his working life, married my grandmother who was born a Mexican of ex-pat parents, had two kids. In the ‘60s they moved to Guatemala for a couple of years to finish off his career, then retired to Canada, where their son and daughter lived (they’d been sent here to school and remained). Life was very different here and I don’t think they ever felt truly at home. Grandpa was 71 when he died.

I always remember him wearing a cravat. We shared a love of dogs and photography, and he paid me some attention. That was more important to me than I knew at the time. But there was always a palpable thread of sadness and disappointment in his life, in spite of his general good humour (except when dealing with my unruly brothers). Near the end of his life, when he was ill and had just dressed to go somewhere with me, I remember him saying, “If clothes make the man, then I guess that makes me a man.” I responded exactly as he would’ve responded to me: “Rubbish”. I wish he’d lived long enough for me to know who he was without the filter of childhood.