Gramps 2018
Gramps
I don't remember the walk to his apartment. Or the train ride. It was warm for October or maybe I was warm from being 3 weeks on Testosterone. The apartment, largely untouched since Grandma died, despite the circumstances that brought me there, gave me comfort. The green stripped pull out couch I had slept on as a child, the fluorescent lit galley kitchen I had snuck so many ice creams from, all still there.
He was not an easy man. Self-identified as a Republican, Jewish, Atheist, my grandfather's views confused many, if not even himself. He was boisterous and loved going out to eat. Both traits I lovingly inherited from him. For a long time, he and I went out to eat nearly every week. I would arrive at his apartment door by following the bleach line in the hallway my grandmother had accidentally made so many years before. He would grab his coat and off we went. Oftentimes to the diner a few blocks away.
While far from being the wild child, I was definitely challenging his views. We unabashedly spoke our opinions, arguing loudly and honestly with each other. We would talk for hours after having left the diner at a bench near his apartment. Unafraid of censorship or dishonesty, we cultivated a bond based on friendship and genuine care.
Yet, for once, the room was heavy. I sat curled on the armchair next to the sofa. He sat perched. Aging as he was, he knew what I had to say wasn't going to be easy. In the end, I don't remember much of the conversation. I remember two things. His bright blue eyes, sharp and calm and his word "you're my blood, I will never kick you out". I never did see those eyes again, lost to time and dementia. And while my birth-name was the only name he called me by, he always said "I love you more than you know".
Which says something about an aging man who once told me "Gays need chemo".