Today’s a special father’s day for me. For one thing, my own dad is in my life now. (He was here last father’s day too, but I wasn’t convinced he was sticking around – now it’s looking pretty good. Happy Father’s Day, Dad!)
Also, today is the 100th anniversary of my grandfather’s birth in a tiny village in East Germany. He emigrated to Canada at 21, all alone.
He lived in Toronto, Halifax and Montreal, and then bought a shack on a chunk of land near Mansonville in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Eventually he replaced the shack with a house, where he retired for the last 30 years of his life.
He painted watercolours, played backgammon, made donuts, squeezed orange juice, sewed teddy bears, cooked geese, loved nature, drove badly, collected stamps, wrote letters, adored Christmas, planted flowers, invented things, and developed theories.
One of his theories was that everybody was fifty percent good and fifty percent bad.
I used to argue with him about this.
“But Opa,” I would say, “How do you know there isn’t somebody out there who is fifty-one percent bad?”
We both loved a good debate, and we were both pretty stubborn, and we did sometimes push it to the point of mutual exasperation.
Even though I argued with him about that 50/50 thing, in retrospect I think it became one of my core values. I still believe there is good in everybody, that people can change, that there is always hope. (But I still think I was right about those percentages though.)
He loved me a lot, my grandfather did. He always saw everything I did in the best possible light. Occasionally it annoyed my mother. One time she snapped at me in exasperation “Christ, it’s like he thinks the sun rises out of your asshole!”
Every kid needs one person who thinks the sun rises out of their asshole, and Opa was that person for me. I think way deep down he thought I was 51% good.
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Thanks for the Happy Father’s Day wishes. and yes, I am sticking around. I deeply regret all the years that we, you, Deb and I were are apart but those days are behind us now. Happy Father’s day to all
Suzy, that made me cry. Happy Fathers’ Day to you…you were both to James for many years.
Thanks, Dad.
Deb, this seems to be my week for making people cry. I feel like I should put a box of kleenex up there with the sheep. (Just for the record, James and John have always been close in their own way, but I think I know what you mean.)
“Every kid needs one person who thinks the sun rises out of their asshole…”
amen to that sister.
Zoom, touché! Indeed, “every kid needs one person who thinks the sun rises out of their asshole…”
So that’s where your shininess comes from… Very beautiful post. Thank you for sharing…
Nice. I am lucky, lucky, lucky to have always had a great relationship with my Dad. He turns 80 this month but would rather not think about that so he and Mum buggered off to Newfoundland on a road trip. When they get back, we’ll go “play golf” (in quotes because it’s more of a long walk carrying sticks than golf).
That shack near Mansonville wouldn’t have been in Dunkin, would it? My sister has a cottage there.
Thanks for all the nice comments – I hope you all have some kid in your life you feel that way about.
Gillian – I don’t think so – I’ve never heard of Dunkin, and I think I would have if it was nearby. His land was right near the Vermont border.
Dunkin is just around the corner from Opa’s, Zoom.
Really? It doesn’t even ring a vague and distant bell for me. Anyway, there ya go Gillian – my grandfather and your sister were practically next-door neighbours.
One of the things I love about your writing is the way you can use a cuss-word. Most people just throw them around (me included), sometimes for emphasis, other times because the writer couldn’t be bothered to find a better adjective. The result is seldom anything other than crass.
Your (infrequent) cussing, however, always manages to turn things around to give us an unexpected but oh-so-satisfying chuckle. Thank you.