Grandpa Joe

When my Grandpa Joe died, I put an Estwing hammer in his casket. 

I remember standing there, looking at Grandpa’s body. I knew that he wasn’t there, and yet I wanted to tell him how much I loved him.  So I self-consciously laid that hammer next to his hand on the silky casket-lining material.  I was eighteen years old, and just graduated from high school.  Eighteen, and really much too cool to do something so childlike as putting a hammer in his casket. 

I look back now at that act of memorial, and am so glad that I mustered the nerve to do it despite the awkwardness.  That physical act materially anchored my acceptance of his death to my love and memories of my hard-working Grandpa. 

I remember his massive forearms and rough red hands engulfing a hammer handle. He swung his hammer with quick repetitive rhythm that I tried to imitate. It never seemed to work as well for me as it did for him.  Too many bent nails.

He never seemed to react to the cuts and scrapes that are the constant companion of a carpenter.  The blood that would often trickle from his hands secretly impressed me.  I tried to imitate his stoic manner to pain, but never seemed to manage it without a yelp. 

Grandpa was in his seventies, and could out-work my eighteen-year-old body to the aching point.  I was always impatient for 10 o’clock, when Grandpa took his morning break.  We had either coffee made in an old, tan-stained Mr. Coffee pot, or sometimes (my mind boggles at the thought) Sanka instant “coffee”.  Grandma set the coffee out on the red-checked tablecloth in white ceramic mugs.  Sometimes we had fresh fried cake doughnuts, or Ginger Snap cookies.  Sometimes long, rectangular, strawberry-cream wafer cookies.  I guess we ate whatever they happened to have on hand.  But no matter what, we always had saltine crackers with butter on them.  I remember Grandpa manhandling those fragile, square crackers, furiously buttering a stack of them.  Then one at a time, he crunched a cracker in half, chewing briefly.  Shoving the other half in his mouth, he washed each down with a gulp of coffee until only small white crumbs were left on the tablecloth.  He upended the coffee mug, draining the last swallow.

Standing up, he shoved his Estwing hammer in his pocket. “Let’s get back to work, lad.” 

Since our son Andrew died (six years ago today), Gracie and I have enjoyed hearing about little ways people have remembered Drewbaby.  One family planted a tree in memory of him.  A friend remembered him through an original piano composition.  Poems and free verse, and emails sharing how Drewbaby has affected lives.  I want to tell you in the middle of grief, these memorials of Drewbaby have been sweet and priceless to his Mommy and Daddy.  Thank you for remembering our little lad.

I expect that wherever Drewbaby is, Grandpa Joe is there, teaching him how to swing a hammer just right.