The Lesson
My life has been full of surreal vignettes that seem to have played out outside of my body, so that the memories can be seen from all angles. Whenever I think back on an event and it gives this out-of-body playback, I can tell that it was something life changing. These events form a road map of major destinations connected with less relevant side roads and lesser events in between. Or perhaps the destinations are the insignificant part and instead these life-changing memories are the journey, the road. I like that analogy better because it plays so neatly with many of these events, such as flipping my friend Jon’s Jeep on a foggy mountain road and having to leave it, and him, as we tried to find help. Though memories such as the above are traumatic, they are lessons, bends in the road, that stay with me aiming me in a new direction. However there is one memory that, though more mild in action, is far more vivid and more gently life changing. This memory begins as it ends, with the image of Grandpa Eddy.
Grandpa Eddy’s outward appearance was much healthier than other men his age. He had none of the unhealthy slouch or sickly thinness. He stood tall and proud with a surprisingly athletic build, however his face was kind and soft and always shaven. His face welcomed you to converse and inspired confidence in your words. His head was capped with a full head of grey hair. Grandpa Eddy was my mother’s father and my only living grandparent.
During one family gathering, after dinner had been finished and everyone settled into the living room, Grandpa Eddy asked me to come with him to the basement. As I followed him down, I was hit with uncommon nostalgia for the countless hours I used to spend in that basement playing with my uncle’s ancient toys, his die-cast cars and Bakelite soldiers. We walked into the large, musty, white room that held Grandpa Eddy’s exercise equipment. He picked up a large 25 pound medicine ball.
The medicine ball is a large dark brown sphere. Its leather skin is crisscrossed with a web of dry cracks. The ball is filled with unknown contents whose weight could crush a small child, or at least I once thought so. It was at least three times as old as me, a true relic of antiquity.
I had never questioned the actions of my Grandfather. Over the years, he had replaced Steve McQueen and the like to reach near god-like stature in my mind. His life was a roadmap of conflicts approached and conquered through hard work and honesty. He had started his life as the son of Scottish-American iron-ore miners on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He fought an academic war to be the first in his family to go to university. He made it all the way through law school and found himself working in the F.B.I. under J. Edger Hoover.
Stories collected from Grandpa Eddy illustrated a life of car chases, shootouts, and impossible deadlines as he tracked the criminals on the F.B.I.’s most wanted list. He had also told me about his years as a trial lawyer. Often his neighbors would tell me the story of how he had helped them gain citizenship and find housing in
So when he told me we were going to toss the medicine ball around and talk a bit, I had no objections. He stood about eight feet from me and asked, “What do want to do with your life?” He then immediately tossed the ball.
“I don’t know,” I replied in practiced teen nonchalance while catching the ball with little effort. I threw it back, watching the turbulence of dust in its wake play in the sunlight seeping through the sliding glass door.
“Is there a profession that interests you?” he asked with another toss. As I caught it he rolled his head back to loosen his neck. As he did so, he drew musty air in to fill his chest.
“I think it would be interesting to be an architect.” Toss. I swayed with the momentum of the ball.
He nodded his approval, “It might be.” Toss. I staggered back, surprised at the force. This old man had been doing more than just jogging these recent years. Must have been eating his Wheaties I mused in my brain. “Throw it back hard this time.”
“Are you sure?” At sixteen I was no bodybuilder, but I was as large as Grandpa Eddy and worked out during sports practice.
“Of course.”
I tossed it a little harder and he stood solid, but when the ball came back its force knocked me to the ground. This was strange, never in sixteen years had Grandpa Eddy shown his strength or a desire to cause harm to me. In a rush of adrenaline, I got up and threw it back with all my strength. He caught with ease.
“That’s more like it!” He smirked.
After this we talked no more, we just battled each other with the medicine ball. It was like a sort of ultra-macho testosterone test and we walked away after twenty minutes, tired and oddly content.
Three weeks later, I received a call from my mother from Grandpa Eddy’s house. Grandpa Eddy passed away during the night she said. I couldn’t believe it after that display of youth and strength in the basement.
As a small boy I had many role models, most of them characters from films, which I idolized. I wanted to be a strong, heroic man like Steve McQueen in Bullitt, or Gregory Peck in North by Northwest. These were men thrust into uncommon circumstances, yet they always came out on top and did it with style. Like most small boys, I was reluctant to put any mere mortal in this heroic ranking, but I still found room for my Father and Grandpa Eddy
When I was sixteen, I had already come to terms with the realities of the world. I understood all to well the mortality of human life from the deaths of my grandmothers and a very close uncle. I also knew that the heroes in the world were far less glamorous than I had previously believed. With age and maturity came a greater appreciation for the accomplishments of everyday people, men and women alike. I didn’t realize it then, but this, though a very short conversation, would be the last time we talked alone. It was also the first time we had ever talked about any event in the future. Still, in this final lesson he showed that he never had been and never would be frail.
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