Today, I was taking him to a friends house that was going to give him a ride to some leadership seminar. I was sort of meandering my way home in no particular hurry. I happen to live just down the road from the cemetery where my maternal grandparents are buried. I figured I would dip in and pay a visit. It's the Buddhist in me, trying to embrace the concept of death. I didn't really expect the wave of emotions and thought this seemingly innocuous visit would bring.
I am in the midst of what perhaps could be called a midlife crisis. It most certainly an existential crisis and it just so happened to come in my midlife period, as I turn forty years old this month. I found the grave and remember the cold February day that I served as pall bearer for my deceased grandfather, Jackson Eugene. It was a windy, blustery Oklahoma day. I believe it was even sleeting. It was just miserable weather, but I was honored to render such a service. I remember following the path the tractors use to get to the grave site. The coffin was quite heavy. I do not recall who there other pallbearers were. I was eighteen years old and on the eve of adulthood and only a few months away from my Navy adventures. My grandfather had many major health issues that seemed to just pile drive him at the end of his life. There was Lupus, some early stage cancer, and maybe just a bit of Alzheimer's. The turning point was during a routine overnight stay at the hospital to check on one of these ailments. My grandfather was a very stoic and proud man. He was also old and feeble at this stage of his life. During the night he had to use the bathroom. A man like my grandfather wasn't about to call some nurse in to help him do such a private task. He got out of his bed and fell hard. He broke his hip and did some other damage to his hard used and frail body. This trauma made everything that was already going on much worse. He died not too long after. It was a bad deal and a crappy ending to a great life.
I sat there at the grave of my grandparents, honoring them. For without them, there would not be a me. I asked my grandfather what he would do or how he would feel if he were dealing with the issues I am very much struggling with these days in my life. Then I began to think deeper. There is no simple thought process in my life. I began to realize that my grandfather was almost a mythical character. A hero of a Greek epic. He was born in 1915 in a very rural part of Texas. His abandoned him and he was raised by his mother and family. He married young and had a son. He wife abandoned both him and his son, and Jackson became a dedicated single father much as myself. His son went on to win two Grammy Awards for music in the late 60's, so he had to have done something right. He worked his was through the Great Depression. He was never without a job because he worked his fingers to the bone in whatever crappy job he could find. He was in construction by trade and was a master tile setter, bricklayer, concrete man, and carpenter. His level of craftsmanship was second to none. He would always do the longer and more labor intensive version of whatever his work was because it was the best and strongest. He made less money so that he could know he did it right. He was honest to a fault. He once stole and orange to eat during the Depression because he was starving. His conscience ate at him until he went to the boss and confessed to his crime. He was fired, but his soul was restored. He was an Army veteran of World War II, serving in the Pacific Theater. I believe he used his construction skills there. He did not see combat, thankfully, from what I am told. The story of his service is even better than a combat tale. My grandfather was the only one in his unit that could be trusted to guard the beer shed. You see, my grandfather was a life long teetotaler. He never once tasted a drop of alcohol his entire life. This quality along with his fervent honesty made him the ideal soldier for this job. Everyone else would skim out the of the beer supply or give it away to his buddies. My grandfather would never dream of doing such a thing. Jackson returned from the war, and like much of the "Greatest Generation", sucked it up and made America great with speed and great haste. He continued his work in construction and had parts in many important projects in my large city on the prairie. He was a devoted husband to my grandmother. He almost babied her. When he died, a lot of my grandmother died with him. People don't love that hard anymore. he continued to raise his son, raised my grandmothers son as his own (her first husband died in the war), and together they had my mother. They were good, salt of the earth, middle class people. He and the family walked a block to the Methodist church every Sunday without fail. He was stoic but also hilarious in ways that only he knew about. He used to always wear some tee shirt with something funny on it under his church suit, probably giggling inside at this joke meant just for him. He helped out his friends and neighbors. He knew right was right and wrong was wrong, and by God always did what was right. My grandfather was such a noble figure in my life, I named my son, my one and only child after him. Jackson is a name that I associate with a greatness that few can achieve or maintain, Not greatness in fame or wealth, but greatness of character and integrity, This is the greatness that really counts in the end. I pray that my own son can achieve part of this by virtue of carrying this great name of his ancestors. These are the stories I was told by my mother. These are the ideals that I longed to emulate in my own manhood. I have fallen quite short in about every respect, though I feel.
Here is the catch. I hardly knew this man. He was of course around until my eighteenth year, but he was a man of few words. His health had left him due to some injury or something that I am not quite clear on. It seems to have robbed him of his vitality though. He was an old feeble man that I remember interacting with, but don't think I ever even approached bonding with. My grandmother I bonded with greatly and I certainly loved her. Why is it that the myth of a man I barely knew is such an integral part of my life? My mother worshiped this man, as you should for such an honorable and dedicated father. The myth of Jackson Eugene was given to me by my mother but I never knew of this man myself.
This of course leads me to another mythical man that has influenced my life. My own father. My dad's family is dysfunction junction. My dad ran away from home early to join the Army, be and Airborne Ranger, and go to fucking Vietnam. How bad does your home life have to be that jungle combat in an unpopular war is the better alternative? Probably pretty rough. My dad is legit. He earned a combat infantry badge, did all kinds of secret squirrel shit that he probably still can't talk about even if he were willing. He would not be willing, however, because legit operators (as they call them in our current wars) don't brag, they just get shit done.There are likely untold numbers of Vietcong bones in a jungle on the other side of the world with my dad's bullet wounds on them. When I got into my shooting as a rookie ( http://nobodybodhi.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-rookie.html ), I called my dad and asked him if he'd ever killed anyone. I shit you not, his response was "Well not here". This had the inflection of "You've killed one guy? WHOOP DE DOO!". Holy shit, that's hardcore. My dad is one of those guys who could have gone good or bad. He's a 5'7" pile of pure badassery. Luckily he went with good. He was briefly a fireman and then got hired on the police department, the same department in which I currently serve. He served with distinction as an officer and then a lieutenant for thirty three years. He was twice decorated for bravery in the line of duty. He was that boss that would take a reprimand to cover his troops on something he told them to do or even just agreed with their decision. This actually happened. He was old school. If you needed to be dressed down or told you were an idiot, he would tell you. If you were a troop, an asshole citizen that got all butt hurt over nothing, or even the Chief himself, he would let you know when you were out of line. He was respected for this. They don't make officers and especially lieutenants like that anymore. The "man-ginas" I've worked for are more afraid of covering their own asses than taking care of their troops. Officer will literally die for a man like my dad. I even got to go on a call once with him. We were both on day shift, in different divisions of course because you can't work for your dad in a paramilitary organization. They had a guy run into one of the metro malls just south of my division and in my dad's. They thought he was armed and were worried about an active shooter type situation. Everyone rolled to that. I get there just as my dad arrived on scene. We formed a contact team and went it. It turned out to be nothing, but damn was that an adventure to be under the command of my own legendary dad on a contact team for a possible active shooter. I had about nine years on when my dad hit thirty three and retired. He was able to bring two years of Vietnam era military service over to his police pension so technically has 35 years on the books for maximum pension benefits.
Guess what? There's another catch. I don't really know my dad either. My parents divorced when I was six. Back in 1982, dads got every other weekend visitation. He also worked like a beast, week on/week off like I do. They were paid like crap back then, so you have to work a ton of "extra jobs" just to survive. He went on and married this mega bitch and was with her for like eighteen years. That bitch hated me and my sister. I cant stand my sister either, and neither could you, but I'm cool so WTF? It got to where as i got to my early teen years and had other things to do, I would do them. Who wants to willfully put up with some bitch that hates you? (wait, I guess I do because I basically just divorced the same kind of woman, CRAP!). This was on top of the fact that my dad has the personality of a pile of firewood. He was graced by the hand of God to be a soldier and cop, but I think some of the other ingredients were left out. Engaged fathering? Nope. Emotions? Whats this crazy talk? I feel the one thing I have always done well at and can be proud of is my role as a father. I also feel I became this father because I did not have one and did the exact opposite of what my dad, or mother for that matter, did for me.
I followed in the exact footsteps of my father. I served in the military (OK, Navy, but fuck off. It counts), then got on the police department to serve my community. I did this partially because i always feared the concept of living a life without meaning. I would hate to be on my dead bed and my see that my years of labor and work only contributed to a companies profit margin. Screw that noise, I want to make a difference. I am pretty certain I also did this, at least subconsciously, to earn the love or be recognized by that father that I really never had in my life. He still lives here in the city and is only about a forty minute drive away, or a phone call away. I have tried to connect. I have primed the pump left the valve open for communication. I have desperately needed that connection in the last terrible year, the year of the breakdown. It's just not there. He does not have the capacity. Nor does my mother, but that's a different blog for a different time.
This last year and a half has been the worst of my life. It has caused me to question the very nature of my existence. It had caused me to question the entire course of my life. I question the thoughts and foundation I have based my life on. I am beginning to realize I have based the entire course of my life on emulating mythical men that I don't even really know and that honestly have never known me. I am chasing the ghost of this noble idea of what I think manhood should be. I don't think I even once stopped to contemplate what man I needed to be based on who I am as a person.
I have leaned an awful lot about the person I repressed or didn't even know while in pursuit of the myth. I love to write. I am artistic. I am compassionate and loving. I am open with my feelings (now, after the breakdown at least). I often think of what life would be like had I embraced or tried to at least find who I was in my youth. What else could I have done with my life? What path could I have taken? It would have been meaningful because I will always need that. I do like my career most times. It seems to be more meaningful now after my breakdown and having been at my lowest point, I have a compassion now that I could not have before. You cannot know true pain and strife until you yourself have been face down in the mud, battered, bloodied, and bruised. You have to get that low to get that different perspective. I have found my niche with the emotionally disturbed, the downtrodden, and the outright crazy. I have been in those shoes and can feel true empathy. I have what seems like infinite patience with them. I leave them with a deep sense of pride, knowing that by showing compassion and true understanding I had a chance to really make a difference. But this macho man, Type A bullshit culture is toxic. I get made fun by my peers for trying to connect and show compassion. These people have not seen what I have seen. They have not come to terms with their own demons. We mock what we do not understand.
I question my life as though I had based it all on some silly Hollywood stereotype of The American Male, which is essentially what I did. I don't even know who I am. I also turn forty this month. Half a life wasted on chasing the equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster? The good thing is that at least I was awakened. What a shame to have never found this realization. I have to do at least eight more years in my current career to get my pension. I am over that hump at twelve years, and to leave now would be idiotic. In these remaining eight years I well set myself up for Life V2.0.
If I can only convince my own son to not chase the myth and be who HE wants to be.
Take care and be well, my internet friends. Go visit your grandpa's grave too. You never know what he might have to say.
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