I was lucky. I grew up after about the age of 6 with an old, strange, adopted grandfather in the backroom of our small house. He taught me how to play chess, how to rig a sail, how to stuff a pipe with tobacco but mostly he taught me about the importance of our elders - especially to kids. I was lucky, growing up with him in the same house.
I wish every kid to grow up in a multi-generational household. There is magic and power in it. Our modern life, sticking our elderly in other “homes”, I don’t applaud.
Here is a quick poem I tapped out, in his name and honor.
Grandpa Spidle
Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
He built those big ships
schooners
like the one
on our dime.
I listened as a young boy
as he explained how
it got done,
in his backroom
stroking his goatee
drawing and scribbling
mathematical formulas.
A young lad
he had met the wrong woman.
Love does that sometimes.
And he followed her to
”the big smoke” - Toronto
and he drove streetcars
and paid the bills.
As the kids grew up
his marriage fell down
and he ended up
still in love but at
999 Queen St. W.
the lunatic asylum.
Years
he stayed there
staring at the brick walls.
His wife had signed him in
and she wouldn’t sign him out
plus, the powers that be
were making
good money
by him staying there
comatose put.
Finally, after
a government commission
two or three of them,
he was set free
to waste his days
boarding in a basement room
in some non-distinct neighborhood
on some ordinary street.
My mother befriended him.
She was friends with his landlady.
And when he heard of her plans
to head up north into the wilderness|
and start new,
live on nothing at all,
he asked if he could come.
And that was that.
Once our house was built
Grandpa Spidle got
the back room and helped us
make ends meet,
pay the bills with his
monthly government check.
My sisters would cut his hair
and serve him tea and toast
for pocket money.
Me, I’d just sit outside his door
enthralled
listening to him talk to
a host of people
from his nut house days.
Every Friday was
grocery day
and we’d all pile into
whatever junk vehicle
was running at that moment
and head into town
Grandpa always ordering
his hot beef sandwich while
us kids got fries and ice cream
and my parents shopped.
He loved his food.
He loved my mom’s cooking.
She’d rustle up his fav
”Down East Dinner” and
we’d eat like kings that
salted sailor ham
potatoes, cabbage, carrots and onions.
Then, life happened.
I moved out at 15
then it was university and
Grandpa got sick.
I was miles away.
I never got back to
give him a last hug.
He went to where
those big ships still sail
and sing as they pull through
the strong winds.
I stop from time to time
at his humble grave
and thank him
for being there
in his backroom,
constant as a north star,
being there when
we needed him
to help us survive
and pay the bills.
It’s all a person has to do
in their life -
be needed.
I guess that’s why
he followed us into
the frozen hinterland
of pine trees, muskeg and snowbanks.
We gave him a home.
He made us a home.
Grandpa Spidle.