My grandfather was a quiet, honest man. My dad told me last year, while he was sifting through memories, that his father was offered a job across the country years ago. It was a colossal opportunity, but his kids were miserable at the thought of moving. My grandfather quietly retracted his acceptance, and the family kept on as normal in their gorgeous neighborhood, unaware and unfazed.
"And he was such a good writer," my dad said on the phone, the day he flew home for his father's funeral. "Did you know that? I never realized just how good he was. I guess that's where I got my love for writing, and I gave it to you." My dad believes this; he's told me before that there is something endless and refining about generations. That we are always stuck in the delicate scale between thinking our parents are better than us and still trying to outgrow them.
My grandfather died a year ago this week. I know he lived a big life--an ordinary, remarkable life. He was an artist, and this genius shows in his ink sketches. But common sense told him that he couldn't eat drawings. He worked hard for a degree instead, always nursing a small hope for the creative spark to show up packaged in a more practical way.
After he finished his undergraduate degree, his university offered him a scholarship for postgrad studies in creative writing. Not long after, he was drafted in the army. Military intelligence. The scholarship offer was off the table, then his one chance of being a writer--come and gone.
The details of this have long been disputed over coffee at Nana's dining room table, from the teasing lips of aunts and uncles. What can be said but that we remember our heroes in the best way we can--exaggerating in an attempt to represent them to scale. What I do know for certain is the stuff that makes a good life.
My grandfather proposed to a spirited nurse in his car. They married on Saint Patrick's Day. Five kids came along--grew--married--left. He taught his kids the gospel, the same gospel that made his oldest son leave the country in his twenties, moving his kids an ocean away from their grandparents. I am one of those.
In the flashes I remember of my grandfather, he was always resolute and still. I was not a child for conversation, so the few childhood memories I have are of dinner and card games when we were in the country. He would pat my hand and call me "dear." He would call me to the bird feeder whenever a hummingbird appeared, and would act curious when I proudly caught a jar of fireflies in his backyard.
The last time I saw him, we spent time talking--really talking--for the first time in my life. I tried to detect the parts of my dad that I found in him: how he leaned forward on his arm when he talked to people, the soft noises he made when he was listening, the way his eyes squinted when he thought something was funny but not quite funny enough to laugh.
I sat on my Nana's fleecy carpet while my grandpa directed me to spilling files, from his armchair in the living room. He showed me his endless collection of our family history, and I discovered we had a strong name--a name that started in Europe, moved due to persecution, translated Bibles, married, birthed, set sail on a ship, farmed. Van Meters were resolute. Van Meters were honest. Van Meters were good.
The last time I saw my grandfather, he followed me towards the front door, leaning heavily on his mahogany cane. He patted my hand and smiled at me. "You know," he said. "I always thought I would write the next Great American Novel, but maybe I just had the wrong Van Meter. You keep writing, dear."
So I sign all of my writing with the one thing I have that belonged to him. The blood that whispers to me in insatiable words, that holds pens like a glutton; it comes from him. I imagine book spines on library shelves with that name, the name that took a while to show up in publication, the name I borrowed from my Pawpaw Van Meter, and I keep writing.
