Post-Funeral Tip #2
Do NOT watch Tim Burton’s Big Fish after the death of a loved one.

Objective
Private guy. Had trouble with emotions. Short tempered. Didn’t have a sense of humor. Distant sort. I guess he just couldn’t articulate all the stuff in him. Didn’t matter. We knew. He was always there when folks needed him. What more?

Next Time You’re in Ottawa
Apparently if you go to the airplane museum here in Ottawa, you can find evidence of him on a part from the famous Avro Arrow plane. When they were dismantling it, lines were drawn on the plane with the words “Cut Here.” Apparently my grandfather authored those words. Guess that’s where I got my writing blood.

He started dying in 1996 when my grandmother had to be placed in a nursing home because of Alzheimer’s. He was heartbroken. He emptied the house. Had a family fire sale. House became creepy, empty, ghostly. He’d visit her every day. Soon he was nursing her. He became part of the staff in essence. But he let the rest of his life stop. He hated that house. He barely slept. Last July he moved into the nursing home. We knew something was up.

Vegas 1997.
Kelly and I got married for him. We’d been together for five years but he was always asking (but really suggesting).

Post-Exile
When I finally found my way into their lives again some 10 years later or so, they welcomed me as if I had never left. But it was strange because I was nine when I was taken, and 18 when I returned. Even though we’ve been together the last 18 years, I’ve still felt a little distant, a little bit like an outsider, like I wasn’t real family. Probably connected with the fatherless birth too. It wasn’t them though. It was me.

Satori in Ottawa?
Without me really looking, without me having any clue what the process was about or where it was going, I sorta solved the whole father thingamajig. Ya see, no matter how far I drifted into a world of darkness and hate later on in my life, the roots of my grandparents’ love was always there as a series of abstract emotions, a faint beacon. I lost sight of it a few years ago when I became obsessed with finding my biological father. I tracked him down in 2000. I wanted him to accept me. I wanted him to make up for being a dead-beat dipshit. No go. After that failed, I tried to see if there was something with not really my pops, but we were nothing but bad roommates in a real fiery house of hate. There weren’t no love to be found in those fellas.

Why did I need this? I turned out relatively okay. I can’t really explain it. Maybe it has to do with being a father myself. How the heck can I father w/o having been fathered? I guess there are times when you just want the comfort, the guidance, the experience of a father.

In writing the eulogy, I realized not only how much I loved this man, but also how much he loved me. This love uncovered an inner strength that I didn’t even know was there. He was my father all along. Right under my nose the whole time.

My grandfather’s death led me back to my family, my roots and for the first time in a long, long time made me feel like I was part of something. Through his death, I found something like a life and that’s pretty damn beautiful.

Guess it’s time to get back to The Street.

Chris Robinson is but a man. His hobbies include squirrel taunting, goat thumping, meat dancing and elderly peeping. You can find the results at http://asifa.net/robinson.