how do you reconcile such vastly differing ideals of the same person. I think i have discussed in the past (in this blog or a previous edition of it) that my grandfather, my favorite man, was rather consistently involved in extra-marital affairs. (Funny I wonder if that was some of my grandmother's seemingly cold front in reaction to my birth? maybe the circumstances were a little too familiar except that I don't think my grandmother was the other woman.) Now I dislike my father because he was cheating on his wife (and thus cheating on my mother too). that's not the only reason i dislike him; it porbably isn't the main reason either. i think it is just one of those things that solidifies my opinion of him as an ass.
but that means i have to look at my grandfather with the same critical eye right? i used to rationalize it saying that he did not do anything to me so i could overlook it, but the truth is, even unwittingly, my grandfather laid the foundation, albeit a rocky unstable one) that would later crumble beneath my family's and my feet.
I'm sure my mother knew of my grandfather's indescretions. it seems that it is just kind of tolerated because my grandfather took care of his financial obligations to his children. hell apparently one of his girlfriend's paid for a semester or a year of my mother's college tuition.
i can only imagine that that made my mother a bit more prone to possibly getting sucked in by my father even if she knew he was married (which is the point up for debate--I have always envisioned my mother as a bit of a simpleton when it comes to practical knowledge but maybe she wasn't)
and then there was money. my grandfather was a bit of a gambler. Racetrack and lottery were the 2 things I saw him do. but he was always finacially stable so it was what he did with his money like a hobby. he was always bailing out my mom and my aunt. but i think as a result they both have a love of gambling and no real sense of the consequences. and neither of them has the disposable income to really have gambling as a hobby. I remember once my grand dad and i were out and he had to stop and "play his numbers." He had 2 long lists of lottery numbers; the first was his then wife's and the second was his. After he had purchased his wife's spending like $40, i realized that his list would amount ot about the same thing and I admonished him about throwing away that money. So he gave me the money he was going to spend on the tixs and we left. I felt soooooooooo bad because I realized it was not so much of a cimpulsion with my grandfather as it was a hobby.
but the gambling inclination, and the lack of fiscal responsibility destroyed my family once he was not there to hold it all together. my aunt had a major gambling problem (think disappeared to atlantic city for a few years, spent a few years living in the YWCA); after my grandmother died, the story is my grandmother's house (that she had just finished paying off after 30 years) was seized because my aunt didn't pay the taxes because she had gambled away her money. so in an instant the only HOME I had ever really known was gone. the last day i was in that home was the day we buried my grandmother. i never got a chance to go back because whitin a few months the drama began and then the house was gone. (I did finally get to see the house a few years ago when i drove by it for the first time in ages and saw a for sale sign up. I called a realator and arranged for a tour. it was the same house, but the feeling of home had been erased and that made me a bit sad. i considered for a moment buying the house but the neighborhood isn't that good anymore so it would not have been a sound investment)
(my grandfather's house I never got to visit again after he died; there was some familial disputes between us and his then wife) and my mother, well her gambling, while not on the same level, has an intensity that makes me angry. she must stop and get a lottery tix. if she dreams of a red cardinal she thinks my grandfather is sending her a number so she playus his house number, his tag number and or his birthdate, etc. she's got systems for playing the slot machines. it fucking drives me crazy. I HATE gambling. i don't know if it is because i lost my "favorite aunt" and my grandmother's home to it or if it is a fear that if i start and like it i will not be able to stop. i also don't like to lose. losing seems like wasted money and i don't like to waste money and have nothing to show for it.
the last thing I iwll say about my grandfather is that in all the memories i have of him, I never remember him talking. i don't know why i felt so safe and secure and attached to him because i never remember him communicating. i am sure we must have, but i don't remember it.
i remember driving to wildwood NJ every summer for a week and getting car sick and being allowed to go ride in the car with my grandfather. he would drive and let me lay across the back seats and roll down the window so i got air. i rememebr the blue buick and the beige one. i remember seeing him with a ladder once by his church. i recall that he also had a cane as if he had hurt his leg or something but was still doing some kind of work on the church. i remember his big red chaor and the ceramic dog statue. i remember discovering that he didn't sleep in the same bed or room with his then wife.i recall being brought home with a severe tummy ache that i think was caused by soda, fresh roasted peanuts and chilli dogs. i rememebr that he and my grandmother never sat in the same room when he brought me back to her house--she sat in the DR and he sat in the LR. i don't recall ever hearing either of them call the other by name. i vaguely recall getting a package in the mail for my bday and it was new underwear. i remember getting half dollars and dollar coins from my grandfather, sometimes by the handfull or by the roll. i remember that he had buig strong hands. i rememebr that when he hugged me at the end of the day his 5 oclock shadow would ticke my face. i remember sitting in his hospital room (I didn;t know he was terminal, i thought there was something wring with his stomach or his leg.) and we just sat in silence and watched car racing. i remember sitting in a hospital waiting room because they said i couldn't go see him because I had a cold (in hindsight i know it was porbably because he was getting chemo) and a woman walking up to me and talking to me; she later turned out to be his girlfriend. i remember the same woman (i think) at his funeral kissing his head. i remember thinking when they opened the casket "whew; it's not him" i remember my grandmother dind't sit with us at the funeral out of respect for his current wife. it was about that time that i also discovered that my oldest 2 aunts were really my half aunts (children from previous marriages of my grandmother) i rememebr thinking when they went to close the casket and were covering his face that he wouldn't be able to breathe. and i remember going to a seafood restaurant instead of the burial because htey thoguht it would be better for the grandkids. i have never been to his grave.
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