So at 2:13 pm CDT October 30th, my grandfather, Ronald "Jack" Sanders passed away. It was not unexpected as he had been in deteriorating health for a while. But, I'm not going to focus on the fact that he's now gone. There is a lesson to be learnt in our relationship that I know is relevant to many people. For almost the first two decades of my life, my grandfather was essentially a non-entity. I would see him in passing if mom took me to where he worked because she needed something or wanted to ask him something. He stopped by a the rarest of occasions, but I can only really remember one of them. My grandparents had divorced while my mom was still young and he had re-married and so he tended to deal with that end of the family more often. How much of this was Betty's doing I'm not sure. Though, knowing Betty as I do, I'm sure a large portion was the result of her micro-managing how he spent his time off work.
And it was because of this that a resentment built up in me. In fourth grade, I wore his old army uniform and while trick-or-treating that Halloween, I went to a house and the woman asked me where I got the uniform and I said something to the effect of it belonged to my "dead beat grandpa." I let this stranger see a glimpse of the distance between the two of us and she gently attempted to push the "dead beat" notion from my mind. And, it worked for the most part. But, it wouldn't be until after I was out of high school that the situation changed.
My Grandfather's eye sight began to slip and after a car accident I was volunteered by my mother to drive him into work at night. This began a few years of errand running and more importantly: My relationship with my Grandfather. I discovered in our runs for Betty's bird seed (over two hundred pounds of it) and taking him into work, or the occasional trips to take Betty to the doctor (Grandpa and I would go shop and eat while she was there) that the two of us actually got a long really well. We picked on mom when she couldn't get the camera going, we picked on my grandma, Elaine, we had our own little inside jokes and games. And I often began to wonder if I could go back to the little boy who did not yet know his grandfather, and told him about the relationship he would get to have and the time he would eventually spend with him-if that kid would ever believe it. It was a shame the two of us didn't get a chance to have a longer time together, but eight years was long enough for me to appreciate being able to know him. My paternal grandfather, Rodger Hansen, died in 1979 of cancer. So, I never got the chance to know him at all. And if not for a bad eye, I may have never gotten to really know my maternal grandfather, either.
Our lives are short. Too short to take the people in our families for granted. Too short to let life get in the way of kinship. It's too short not to make the effort. And it's too short to let things in the past keep you apart from people in the present. I ended up having a truly blessed time getting to know a man that without whom, I wouldn't even exist. Sometimes, making the effort won't be enough to bridge the gulfs between us and everyone. But, if we don't try; we won't know.