![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
OK, actually Western Springs, IL.
Grandfather's wake Monday, funeral Tuesday. I was a pallbearer, along with five of my cousins. When I go, I'm getting a lighter box.
In the past two days I've seen relatives I haven't seen, some of them, in eighteen years. I met for the first time cousins now in college. I literally left Chicago half my lifetime ago, and so little has really changed. The younger group of cousins tell similar stories to those of the older group - about eating family dinners at my Grandparents' house in the basement while the adults sat at "the big table" upstairs, about walking in Egger's Grove, the local forest preserve, about Grandpa.
You could never really tell when he was pulling your leg. He never let on, the master of the poker face. Loved, but feared also, in the way that a storm might be feared - as a force of nature maybe. Sometimes, you just had to run for cover. He loved nature - the officiating priest called it his way of communing with God - it seemed like he knew the name of every plant, every tree, every bird. He knew their stories, and he would teach them to you if you went with him on one of his walks.
He and my Grandmother raised seven children, all college graduates. An accomplishent in any estimation, they did it in the working-class neighbourhood of Chicago's East Side. This is not exactly an urban paradise; in fact it was pretty much a mill town. It is a testament to the love of learning that they instilled in their children, and which was passed down to their grandchildren, and now hopefully their great-grandchildren as well.
I've only seen my Grandfather a handful of times in the past decades, but I'm amazed at how much I miss him.
peace,
thom
Grandfather's wake Monday, funeral Tuesday. I was a pallbearer, along with five of my cousins. When I go, I'm getting a lighter box.
In the past two days I've seen relatives I haven't seen, some of them, in eighteen years. I met for the first time cousins now in college. I literally left Chicago half my lifetime ago, and so little has really changed. The younger group of cousins tell similar stories to those of the older group - about eating family dinners at my Grandparents' house in the basement while the adults sat at "the big table" upstairs, about walking in Egger's Grove, the local forest preserve, about Grandpa.
You could never really tell when he was pulling your leg. He never let on, the master of the poker face. Loved, but feared also, in the way that a storm might be feared - as a force of nature maybe. Sometimes, you just had to run for cover. He loved nature - the officiating priest called it his way of communing with God - it seemed like he knew the name of every plant, every tree, every bird. He knew their stories, and he would teach them to you if you went with him on one of his walks.
He and my Grandmother raised seven children, all college graduates. An accomplishent in any estimation, they did it in the working-class neighbourhood of Chicago's East Side. This is not exactly an urban paradise; in fact it was pretty much a mill town. It is a testament to the love of learning that they instilled in their children, and which was passed down to their grandchildren, and now hopefully their great-grandchildren as well.
I've only seen my Grandfather a handful of times in the past decades, but I'm amazed at how much I miss him.
peace,
thom
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2002-04-24 12:15 pm (UTC)Corey