This is mostly a letter for my grandpa

Good morning, grandpa. You’re handsome, Grandpa. You’re smart, grandpa. I love you, Grandpa. Goodnight Grandpa.

I still don’t remember if that’s how it goes. No matter how many times I spent listing those phrases on my hand when we came to visit you every summer, It was a game, I’m sure, but somehow I never knew if I got them right. I suppose after 24 years of remembering, I might still forget.

It was my freshman year of college when I started to feel like I knew my grandpa best. Maybe a tad before then, like when I came to California for a summer to go to some camp at Berkeley. I got to spend solo time with my grandma and grandpa and they showed me where they met for the first time in my Grandma’s first dorm building. I remember so well that Grandma situated Grandpa in the entryway of the dorm, exactly where she remembered seeing him for the first time, or maybe for their first date. I suppose that is another detail that doesn’t really matter.

Maybe it was because my grandparents helped me so much with paying for college, but when I entered my freshman year, I felt it was important for me to share my experience with them. I wanted them to feel like I was appreciating their generosity by getting the most out of my experience. But as anyone who goes to college knows, it isn’t that easy to get the most out of your experience, and certainly it came with its ups and downs.

My grandma and grandpa were witness to it all. Whether they wanted to or not. But I am so appreciative that they were.

My sophomore year of college I had my own radio show. From the very beginning, my Grandparents rarely missed an episode. All the way from their house in Oakland California they would tune in to my radio show. A show that premiered at 10 am in Minnesota, 8 am in California. As the show went on throughout all three years at college, my grandpa and grandma maintained their groupie status. Often, my grandpa would send me messages in response to things I said or asked on the show. I will never forget when my grandpa requested I play “livelier music” because he was on the exercise bike and needed some more energy. Because he is paying for my college degree (and I love him), I immediately obliged.

I chose St. Olaf because I wanted to study abroad so badly, and it was a great choice for that. My sophomore year I spent, unexpectedly, a month in Palestine. There I learned things and developed some opinions that I don’t think my grandpa and I agree on. These last few months saw those disagreements come to life in a painful and stressful and confusing way. My grief has caused a hole in my chest, but that hole in my chest wasn’t going to be filled with more strife and more arguments. The hole in my chest, and the hole in his (I assume) was going to be better filled by emails sent through distances that felt like holding hands and acknowledging differences and holding space and having respect. Not every granddaughter gets to feel like that with their grandpa. The hole in my chest got smaller after that.

My grandpa works out every day. Or at least most days. Since I’ve known him, which is only 24 years to his 90 I suppose I don’t know that much. I think it might be why I decided I wanted to work out a lot too. I admired his commitment and his strength and I wanted him to be proud of me. So I worked out a lot and it wasn’t healthy. I was scared and embarrassed when I found out I had an eating disorder. It made me feel like I failure, like even exercise I couldn’t do healthfully. I didn’t want my grandparents to know. But they found out, because sometimes when you’re a parent you tell your parents things for guidance and also because my mom knew they loved me and that love wasn’t conditional. Especially not on the condition of if I went to the gym as many times a week as my grandpa did. When they did find out, I felt nothing but love. And I still feel nothing but love, which reminds me that nobody gives a shit about what I look like or if I work out a lot. Especially not my grandpa (well maybe he does but I hope only if it makes me happy).

My grandpa is a man of few words, but I don’t think that’s because he doesn’t have them, he just chooses them carefully. I’m not a person of few words. Sometimes I have so many words they get me in trouble. Now I’m hoping they will pay my bills. He’s a very funny man which I think is maybe why we get along the way we do. I think he thinks I am funny and there aren’t many compliments I take more seriously than that. Maybe I’m assuming too much, here but I think he’ll tell me if that’s true.

My grandpa is a Sustainable Baddie. He is such a Sustainable Baddie that everyone on my team knows him quite well. He is consistently a top view of our website and newsletter. I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because he likes to read my writing. Or maybe it’s because he is trying to find out what 12 gifts to get the astrology-obsessed person in his life this year for Christmas. I swear I’m trying to be humble, but I think it might be the former.

I’m lucky that my grandpa texts, and has an Instagram and knows his way around substack. Not a lot of granddaughters get that. His Instagram might look like an internet troll because it doesn’t have a profile picture and he has no posts, but I know it’s him. And I know he follows Ho Foods and Sustainable Baddie and tries his best to keep up with my life and my cousins and I guess it’s to my benefit that I use it the most out of all of them.

My grandpa is a Cancer, and if you aren’t reading this from the lens of astrology, I’m talking about his star sign. When I learned that he was a Cancer it helped me understand him better. It helped me acknowledge how much generosity and loyalty are embedded in all the things that he does. And believe me, Grandpa, Cancer’s have negative traits, but I’m moody also so who knows if it’s in the stars or just in our blood.

There is a lot more I can say. And probably I will, but my grandpa’s mother, my great-grandma, told my mom once that she wanted to be around to watch us live our lives, her generosity included. So with her wisdom in mind, I want my grandpa to read my words. I know he does (even when they are annoying and mushy gushy, and maybe even disagreeable).

I told my dad on the phone tonight that words are hard to find for me. He paused and asked me, really? And the answer is yes, but sometimes they keep me up at night, and I suppose that makes them easier. So here are those words. It’s 1:45 in the morning, but only 10:45 in California

Love you, Grandpa