On Sunday, Mom, Dad, Zoe, Hannah and I went up to Grampa's for a Father's Day family gathering. It was great! There were lots of aunts and uncles and a cousin or two :)
Zoe and I stayed there all week. It was an awesome week! We slept a lot, we shopped with my aunt(s), we swam with our friends, and we played with the dogs. But the thing that I think I'll probably remember most about the week is the time I got to spend with Grampa.
Not to borrow sorrow, but I can't help feeling now more than ever how limited our time with Grampa is. So the conversations and little jokes and time we spent digging through genealogy together this week are really precious to me.
Once or twice before bed, I went out to the dining room where Grampa was reading and we talked a little. We talked about how he didn't get to see Mom married (every time we get on the subject of how we were in West Virginia all those years, he mentions how he thought "Aha!" and chuckled to himself a little when he found out Jared was marrying a New Hampshire woman and moving up here), and the table of nations (I understood less of that than he realized, but it was ok), and what I want to be when I grow up (when I mentioned the possibility of a year or two of community college, he told me he thought that was a good idea and encouraged me to stay home, where everyone had my best interest at heart, for as long as I could).
After Mom and Dad left on Sunday, Zoe and I stood outside with Aunt Gail, Uncle David, and Grampa looking at Aunt Gail's new car. Grampa asked whether or not Zoe and I had ever driven, and hinted that there may be a chance to drive around the field a bit during the week.
So on Wednesday, when Aunt Gail and her new car were out (he didn't want to attempt it while there were other cars in the driveway. I can't imagine why), he and I went out to the truck. He drove around the driveway and the field once to show me where to go, and then we switched sides. At the end of half an hour, I could shift gears, use a blinker, and back up, in addition to the basic making the car go.
I thought it was fun, and I don't think I scared Grampa too much. :) As we were driving, he mentioned when Grammy first started to drive. I asked if he taught her how, and his answer was something like this:
"Yes, more or less. I think, the way she drove at first, she was trying to kill me! She didn't quite succeed, though. There was one narrow bridge near ___ that I was never quite sure she was going to make it over. She always accused me of trying to climb out the car window when she drove over it!"
Grampa laughs a lot, which I love about him. He's not above laughing at his own jokes, either. He was laughing all the way through that little speech.
My uncle David has done some research into family genealogy, and that has always interested me, so when I was trying to find some information on Grampa's family for him (Grampa) and hit a wall, I called Uncle Dave. He brought me a box of papers and family trees that he's printed out over the years, and it was really interesting! Grampa and I sat down and went through the Edwards/Field folder that evening, and found that my uncle has traced our family back to the first of us to emigrate to the States from Wales. Grampa is something like the 10th generation born in the states.
We also came across some old family photos in the folder. One that Grampa seemed to particularly love was of him in his days as a Marine, standing with his mother (Edith), father (Jesse), brother (Carlton), aunt (Caroline) and uncle (Fred Day). He is the only one living now. His mother died when my mom was a young girl, Grampa Jesse died in 1996, Carlton died tragically in a mill accident (I think) when he was in his thirties, and I don't really know about his aunt and uncle.
You know, as we were going over the most recent family trees, he told me that my great grandfather was very bitter towards one of his sisters. I asked if he knew why, and he said he did, but instead told me about how Grampa Jesse and his sister Caroline took care of each other after their mother died and while their father was at work. Jesse, who was only 7 or 8 at the time, would take care of the farm, Caroline would take care of the house. When peddlers and men came to the house, Jesse sent his sister out of sight so they wouldn't bother her. Grampa told me all that, then told me that there were some very sad and terrible stories about Grampa Jesse and his family, but he didn't want to repeat the bad. He said he wanted to tell me the good about his family and not the ugly, because he hopes that people will remember the good things about him and let the ugly be forgotten. I'd say there's a good chance that that's what will happen.
