The Greatest Man I Never Knew: My Most Unforgettable Character

December 4, 2007

He never said he loved me. Secretly, I longed to hear them. These were the words I can’t really remember being said between my grandfather and me, although I am sure that they were said at some point during my life; probably when we said goodbye or something. I felt like my grandpa and I weren’t close. He favored my cousin Ryan. I know it was because he never had a son, so he treated Ryan like his own son, and I was just another girl in the family.

My grandfather was an amazing man though. He raised three daughters with my grandmother, and none of which were his. In 1960, he and my grandmother adopted two more daughters, my mother and my aunt. Five kids all together, none were his own, but he loved and raised each of them as if they were all carrying his DNA.

In my grandmother’s bedroom, there was a vent that overlooked the living room. My grandfather insisted that his red recliner be placed straight underneath it for some reason. He sat in his recliner all the time, with both

of his hands placed gently on the arm rests and his old frail fingers twitching as if it were uncontrollable by nerves. His face was weathered from many nights chopping wood for the fire and early morning’s deer hunting. His skin looked as if it were made of leather from the smoke that set in from the cigarettes he kept on hand. Brut slithered out of his pores like worms from their holes in a warm summer rain.

He was stubborn about his recliner. Never was bothered to move it for any reason. He bickered about dust falling on his head from the vent above. He’d shake his head, pat it off his hair, and go back to watching Lawrence Welk. I am sure he knew it was me making that annoying dust fall from the vent. It wasn’t because I was playing with it; I just enjoyed peering down at him from there.

I felt like I could bond with him from there. That was my way of being close with him, without him knowing. I couldn’t see much of him; just the top of his freshly cut gray and white hair that was squared off perfectly. That is where I felt love for him from afar. Where I whispered I love you… only because I was too afraid to tell him out of the context of goodbye. The greatest words I never heard, I guess I’ll never hear. Before I could tell him how I felt, he died. It’s been almost seven years since he has been gone. And now, all I can do is pray he knew.