I've had some synchronicity around grandfathers this morning (is it grandparents' day or something?), causing me to reflect on my own grandfathers, who I never knew. One died when I was an infant, the other when I was around five. As I grew up, not very much was said about either of them, but I've gathered up bits and pieces.
My maternal grandfather, the one who died when I was a baby, has always intrigued me and I wish that I had gotten to know him. My mom's family was Catholic, and he was apparently quite devout. He attended Mass regularly, but he seems somewhat odd, in that he apparently used to recite the mass along with the priest. In Latin. (As they did back then.) Perhaps this is where I got my love of classical languages.
He never drove a car, although his wife did. He used to walk to the library every Thursday, and instilled in my mother a love of reading. She loved taking those trips to the library with him.
He used to eat apples, including the core.
What must it have been like for my mother to lose him only 6 months after giving birth to her first child? I wish I could ask her, but she is gone also.
My dad almost never talks about his father. What I've gathered is that he was a drinker and a gambler, and not a very nice man.
Both of my grandfathers were welders. My paternal grandfather worked on the World Trade towers.
This is everything I know about them.
