My grandfather and why I cant seem to write about anything else today

I started this blog on Tuesday (after hundreds of "I should start a blog" moments). Tuesday as is turns out was a very sad day for me and my family.  My grandfather Edward passed away after a brief illness. He was in the presence of all five of his children and other close family when he passed, it was by all accounts a beautiful moment and my grandmother, his wife of 62 years, says he must have had the whole event planned. 

My intention with this blog has been to make it my take on science and other matters that interest me. I have always had a love of science and information and learning and this week I pause to think about the role that my grandfather had in shaping and nurturing those tendencies.  That role as it turns out, was significant.  My grandfather graduated with a degree in Engineering from Queens University in 1948.  As a Canadian Engineer he received an Iron Ring, which is  a ring symbolizing the obligations and ethics associated with being an Engineer. He also studied geology and when I took geology in university I teased him about how when he went to school plate tectonics wasn't an accepted theory.  While he may not have made a study of continental drift he assured me that knew a great deal about rocks and gems and minerals.  He worked for Alcan for over thirty years and to this day you will not catch anyone in the family using the words "tin foil" because its aluminum foil, not tin.  I know very little about what my grandfather was like when he was working and while my mom and her siblings were growing up.  I know he traveled many places for his work, and there are two funny anecdotes he related to me about his travels.  First he made an observation that where ever he traveled in the world people would always walk all the way to the end of a pier and walk all the way back again, out and back just because they could.  Second he once mused that even if he was alone in a new place he would go and "take his camera for a walk" as if his camera was his friend or buddy.  It occurs to me as I am writing this that there are probably plenty of photos out there that I have never seen.

When I was younger my grandparents lived in Ontario and my parents would fly myself and my brother out to visit them for the summers. Grandpa loved to take us to museums, really museums of any kind.  He lived in Kingston and there must have been tons of little museums or interpretive centres around.  I cant even think of them all there must have been ones on Upper Canadian history, naval museums, agriculture and of course when the grandparents moved to Manotick, just outside Ottawa he took me to the National Gallery of Canada.  This was a memorable trip because it was the early 1990s and the gallery had just purchased The Voice of Fire a 2.4m x 5.4m canvas with three stripes of colour (blue on the outside red in the middle) for a jaw dropping 1.8 million dollars.  We stood, and stared and shrugged and walked away.  We went on to look at the rest of the modern art exhibit with what I can only describe as a sense of astonishment over the items assembled in the gallery.  There was even a Pollock work in the same room as VoF and I remember laughing at that.  I learned my first lesson about art.  You can call it art but I can also point and laugh at it.  The day ended after grandpa got in trouble from a youthful gallery employee for touching a statue. We left shortly thereafter.

My grandfather was always reading the news and other books, he was what some people may call a consumer of content.Times magazine was a staple reading material, and when the Internet really started to take off he really discovered a new passion in genealogy.  He was very successful at getting information for the family tree and he had success in connecting with distant family.  As he grew older I made him a promise that I would continue with his work, and he was insistent that I be meticulous in checking my sources and to try to get to primary sources wherever possible.  Apparently the genealogy world is rife with misinformation and flat out lies.  I have much of the information on CDs but its almost too overwhelming to go over them.  one day I will keep my promise to continue the work. 

Several years ago he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and if you have ever dealt with this disease or other age related dementia then you know how devastating it can be.  For my part I lived in another city and so my experience with my grandfather and this disease are vastly different than those closer to him.  When I saw him in October 2009 he knew me and he remembered that I love calamari.  He made one of the funniest jokes to my cousin who said he hoped to see my grandpa on Thanksgiving, to which my grandpa quipped "I hope to see you too".  Even as he lost more and more of his memories to this disease he carried on with grace and dignity and his pragmatic sense of humour.  Last summer was my last visit and it was very emotional because he cried when he saw me because he knew me but also didn't "know" me.  We held hands and shared a cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate cake.  I showed him pictures of my daughters on my iPhone and told him my youngest was named Matilda.  I loved the name Matilda and it was grandparents who taught me the song. I still have the koala stuffy that winds up and plays the melody for Waltzing Matilda which they bought for me in Australia in the 1980s.  We looked through vintage photo albums showing him doing survey work while he was a student.  I'm thinking about those photos and I have to digitize them so that they can be shared with family.  There was a great photo with my youthful grandfather next to a book that said something to the effect of "Make Canada Great", and that's exactly what he did. 

Love you always Grandpa
Heather