When I was a kid I spent every Sunday with my grandparents Brenda and Dave. They only lived about a half hour away from my parents. It was close enough that when you needed them they were there. They never missed a birthday, a sports game, or any special event. Yet far enough away that, as my parents would say, we wouldn’t have to be worried about a random visit. I was never really sure why my parent’s were worried about a random visit to the house. I adored my grandparents as a kid. They traveled a lot in their life time and came to settle in a smaller suburb outside of the city. My parent’s both worked a lot that it felt like I hardly got to see them outside of mornings for breakfast and after school for dinner and homework help. All the fun trips we took as a family usually revolved around me, my older sister Melanie, and my grandparents.
Each Sunday we usually would arrive around 10 AM. My Grandma would usually make us some lunch and tell us a story about it. Throughout my adolescence I later figured out she was trying to teach me some culture and customs of places other than the United States. I was never really sure what my grandparents did, but it seemed they traveled a lot throughout their life time. My dad would tell me one thing, then my Grandma would tell me another. Whenever I was confused I’d just go straight to my Grandpa for the answer. In hindsight this was probably a bad idea. My Grandpa was an amazing story teller. He could incorporate characters and themes that you just wouldn’t see coming. Half the time I’d question whether they were true or not. He always told me they were. They were just stories from his past. I could remember him telling me stories from the age of 6 all the way to 22. The only reason the stories stopped was because my Grandpa passed away. It seemed to happen quite suddenly that none of us saw it coming. One day he was sick with the flu and two weeks later he was gone. I was off away at college at the time and I no longer got to see my grandparents other than on major holidays or breaks from school. I made sure to keep in contact with my Grandma after his passing because I didn’t want her to get lonely in her house with just her and her little dog Ducky.
My Grandpa was apart of the Korean War and after it had ended he was sent on a boat heading back to the states. My Grandma happened to be on that boat with her father. Her father was working on this transportation boat and as fate would have it, she ended up there because she was concerned about my great grandfathers health. As my Grandpa would tell me, he knew from the moment he walked into the dining hall one evening that she was something special. The light bulbs seemed to get brighter and the sounds of the ship seemed to go silent when she walked into the room. He approached her with one goal in mind. He had to know her name. If he was lucky enough he would be able to get her address to mail her a letter and hope that things would evolve. While my Grandpa was known to be charming, funny, and quite the dancer my Grandma wouldn’t even give him her name. Instead he had to refer to her as Tedora. The name of the ship. She did give him an address to mail her a letter. Her address was out of an area near Seattle, Washington. My Grandpa’s curiosity got the best of him and one day he borrowed his friend’s car and took the nine hundred mile trip from Fresno, California up to an area around Tacoma only to find out that the address he had been shipping letters to was a US postal building. He was crushed, but he didn’t give up. He rented a motel room nearby and each morning he would buy a paper and flower from the local newsstand and pack himself three meals in his lunch pale and go sit on the corner at the post office hoping to see “Tedora.” After six days of sitting outside in the heat did he finally reconnect with her. He gave her the flower and offered to buy her dinner. With his hard effort Grandma finally gave him her name, Brenda.
In my own way I’d like to think that I had recreated this own scenario when I was in 6th grade. We were still at that age where each holiday you threw a party in your classroom. During most holidays you would exchange some type of cards. I had a major crush on this girl named Lisa. She had always been nice to me and nice to animals. She also had started to grow boobs at an early age. We had a small party after school in the cafeteria where all the classes exchanged snacks like cookies and cupcakes. So of course I had to do the only normal thing a 10 year old boy would do. I stood on top of a table and pronounced that I loved Lisa and I wanted her to be my girlfriend. She was mortified and ran out of the cafeteria. Luckily it was a Friday and none of my friends were mature enough to know how to talk about girls so it was quickly forgotten about. In the back of my mind I knew this was strike 1 at my attempt to find love. My Grandpa laughed and said he was proud of me. That one day the girl would regret not saying yes, but until then I should set my eyes elsewhere.
The day of my 8th grade graduation my grandparents threw us an after party event. It was a small get together. It was me, my two friends, and our dates. Melanie was also there acting as a chaperone of sorts but really she was just waiting for my grandparents to go to sleep so she could sneak off and be with her high school boyfriend that my parents didn’t know about. It was that night that my Grandpa started telling me about all the stories of how he won Grandma Brenda’s heart over. And it was this night that started my belief that in order to win a girl over you must be willing to make yourself look like a fool with a grand gesture. I think the moment I told him that I might be in love with my date, he knew that I was old enough to start talking about real love and everything that came with it.
While my friends were outside sitting around a fire trading stories and ideas my Grandpa had pulled me aside out in the garage to tell me the story of the first time he had kissed Grandma. It was the mid 50’s and he was in his late 20’s. They had gone out to some place dancing. By then Grandpa had given up everything he knew in California to move to Washington to be closer to her. Back in those days you would drive and go park somewhere to “get close” he would say. I knew he was talking about a make out spot. He said the first time he tried to kiss her she slapped him and said “aren’t you going to ask me first if it’s okay?” My Grandpa was shocked. He had never been slapped before nor had he been turned down by a woman before. They had already been on a few dates and had spent plenty of quality time together. He knew her favorite book. He knew she didn’t get along with her mother. He hadn’t felt like he rushed anything. They had continued to write letters until he could fully move up there to be near her. Before he could even answer her question she leaned in and kissed him. He couldn’t help but chuckle at her. Her tenacity and spirit always kept him guessing and he loved every minute of it. He was forever on his toes. He liked to picture himself as one of those cartoons characters with hearts floating all around his head.
I couldn’t help but hope that one day I would have the same feeling as Grandpa did. That feeling of being weightless like a cloud because her love and passion kept you floating on. I thought I was close to it when I was in high school. I was sixteen and had been together with this girl for three months. That feeling of freedom once you get your drivers license and can go anywhere to explore with your girlfriend is a time of my life I will always look back and feel fondly. I don’t know what it is about being able to roll your windows down, when the perfect song comes on the radio, and you just sing along to the words. Then it multiples by ten when the girl you’re with feels the same way and does the same thing. It almost sends a tingle down your spine. I knew once this happened that I had something special. The girl I was dating at the time, Michelle, was a year older than me. So while I was riding high enjoying the freedom of a new license and some extra spending money from my part time job, Michelle was already starting to think about college and a life passed high school. Looking back I shouldn’t have done what I did. I gave her an ultimatum that wasn’t fair or realistic. We went out to a dinner one night at a nice restaurant. Like a really fancy place where you had to dress up in a suit and tie. Michelle looked beautiful in her off blue dress and her hair up. They had a guy playing the piano. He periodically would sing as well to his tune. When the piano player took a break I walked over to the microphone and admitted to everyone in the building that I loved Michelle and I’d hope that she’d wait for me. A few people clapped and others didn’t know what to think of it. Here I was some dumb hormonal teenage boy in my best dress clothes that I owned. I could tell I made Michelle a little embarrassed. She was blushing by the time I returned to the table. She didn’t understand how I could do something like that. She always admired my courage and confidence. That’s when I ruined my first perfectly healthy relationship. I asked her to wait for me. That after she graduated high school she take a year off so we could go to college together the following year. She was appalled and thought I was nuts. Which of course in hind sight she was completely right. I had no right to ask her to do that for me. We were only teenagers. Shortly thereafter she broke up with me. I was crushed. I didn’t understand how people like my Grandma could remain true and wait for their love even when they were being sent away to war.
The years of courtship had gone on between my grandparents in the 1950’s. They had broken up a few times but always got back together. Whether it was my Grandma serenading my Grandpa at an open mic night or my Grandpa getting arrested for trying to steal the toenail of a dinosaur at a museum. As he later explained to me it was an inside joke. They were laying on the couch one day when my Grandma said that true love was clipping someone’s ingrown toe nail that was as big as a dinosaurs toenail because they couldn’t do it themselves. But later on my Grandpa got sent back to war. He was being sent back to the Vietnam War. It nearly broke him leaving her, even though she had promised him she’d wait for him. As some of my Grandpa’s war buddies once told me. There’s nothing more dangerous than a man fighting for something he has to lose. My Grandpa was given medals and an honorable discharge when he came a crossed a bomb and was brutally hurt. He can’t remember what happened. All he would tell me was that he woke up in a hospital in the states with amnesia. He couldn’t remember the last two weeks. He felt like he had the worst hangover in his life and he couldn’t see out of his right eye. He said while he recovered and was regaining his strength he feared he would never fully be able to see again with both eyes. It had been a month before my Grandma could come visit him, but as soon as she walked in the room my Grandpa says he magically regained his sight and was cleared the next day to leave for home. The power of love he would tell me one day when he took me fishing.
After Michelle, I made it all the way to the college before I found the next “love of my life” girlfriend. Her name was Tristan. I tried my hardest not to do something stupid this time. Here I was a 21 year old with the world ahead of me. I was finishing off my junior year of college while she was finishing off her senior year. I’m proud to say that I didn’t give her any ultimatums or restrictions. I knew we loved one another and if the stars aligned and we were truly meant to be together things would work out. I was halfway through my senior year while she was struggling to find a job in her field after graduation. I was living on campus, but she had a small one bedroom apartment that I spent most of my time at. It was then in January when she finally found a job in her field that offered her a chance to get her career started. The problem was it was on the opposite side of the United States. She didn’t know what to do and she didn’t know what to say. I didn’t either. So like most things I took a drive back to see my Grandpa and asked him for advice. After a good meal and a few adult beverages I finally had the courage to ask him. He looked back at me dead serious and said.
“There’s only a few questions you need to ask yourself. Do you honestly love her? Love being around her? Feel like she makes you a better man?” I paused and then answered.
“Yeah. I truly love her. I think since we’ve been together she has made me a better, strong person.”
“Good. Now when you picture your life in the next two years, five years, ten years even. Is she in it? Honestly. Or is it just you and any XYZ girl in her shadow?” I closed my eyes and pictured it.
“I hadn’t really thought about it. But right now as I take an honest assessment at my life. I see her in my life. Sure we fight, but we make up. We take trips. She’s the one I want having my kids one day.”
“If that’s how you feel… then you have to fight for her. I don’t know your circumstances, but you need to fight for her!”
“The circumstances are she has a job offer on the east coast. A thousand plus miles away. I’m a semester away from graduating so I’m not leaving school. We would have to do the long distance relationship. Which I’m not a huge fan of. In these days it’s so easy to get distracted and lose touch even with all the technology.”
“You know me and your grandmother made it work way before their were cell phones and emails. I think you guys can make it work.”
“You honestly think so?”
“If you love her. If you see a future with her. For once in your life don’t follow my example.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do not do a grand gesture! It’s not going to solve this.” I slightly laughed.
“You’re right. I haven’t had great luck when it comes to grand gestures anyways. They tend to back fire on me.”
“When you find the right girl, there will be a time and a place when it’ll matter and it’ll work. This is not that time. This is the time to be reasonable and supportive. Her whole world is about to change. Don’t add anymore stress to it. Be there for her.”
I knew he was right. I told her I loved her and I supported her and I wanted to make the long distance thing work. At that age though there’s ten thousand things telling you, reminding you, that it’s not going to work and only one feeling that’s telling you that it is. Eventually the distance subdues that one feeling and your brain wins out. We stayed together for another six months and then broke up. I graduated college and celebrated with some college friends. It was about that same time we had to bury my grandpa. I knew that if it was truly meant to be she would be there for me, but she wasn’t. The last I heard she was dating some athletic trainer for a professional team out east. I was happy for her success. She was doing well with her job and seemed pretty happy about it, but at the same time man did it hurt to let her go.
A year had gone by after college graduation. I couldn’t find any relevant work in the field I wanted. I hadn’t been able to sustain any relationship with a woman passed two months. Technology these days seemed to ruin everything. I felt like I was struggling more than I ever had and I needed the advice of my Grandpa but he wasn’t there now. My parents had split up by now. They were never the best example of what love is anyway. My sister had moved and we weren’t great with staying in touch. I had always relied on my grandparents for their wisdom. On this evening I found myself with a bottle of whiskey fighting tears sitting on the ground staring at Grandpa Dave’s tombstone.
“I could really use a classic night with you Grandpa. I need your advice. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” I stayed there for a few hours until it got dark. I had some conversations with myself rehashing some of the old conversations and stories he had told me. The time he surprised my Grandma when they moved into their first apartment and he gift wrapped everything in their apartment so my Grandma would have the feeling of everything being brand new. The time he rented a hot air balloon for their anniversary even though he was afraid of heights. He just needed a metaphor for their love having no limits. Or the time he had paid for an airplane banner saying he was sorry because he set off a house fire in their kitchen that ruined her favorite sweater on her birthday. My Grandpa was the king of grand gestures and finding ways to express himself. I knew I had plenty of great ideas and great examples from him. I just had no one to express it to. As I walked back to my car, half drunk from my half empty bottle of whiskey I met my Grandma leaning against the hood of my car. She offered to take me for a drive. Knowing my Grandma was stubborn I didn’t even bother to argue.
We drove for about a half hour before my Grandma finally pulled over and into an empty parking lot. I wasn’t sure where we were but I could tell it had to be near a park or a lake by the signage. By now the area was closed an no one was around but my Grandma led me down the dark trail with a flashlight. It led to a small area where you could see the ocean. There were some logs and rocks in place for someone to have a small fire. I could tell she had been here before. We sat down on the logs and looked out towards the black sky where the ocean was.
“I don’t think your Grandpa ever told you about this place before did he?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not even sure where we are.”
“This was one of my favorite places growing up. I took him here a few times. Whenever things started to feel like too much I would come here. It was always a place of comfort for me. He knew that. So one day after the wars and we had been together for awhile he took me here and asked me to marry him. I said no.”
“You said no? Why?”
“Your Grandpa was lost. He loved me with all his heart, but he didn’t really know who he was yet. I wanted to give him time to figure that out.”
“What? That’s not what he told me.” I said confused.
“He probably only told you about the story where he proposed and I said yes. That road trip to Santa Monica?”
“Yeah. You guys were like a movie. It was like a fairy tale. Sure you guys had your ups and downs but I never questioned the love you had for one another.”
“I loved your Grandpa with all my heart. And I miss him every day, but I think it’s not doing you any good to believe that our relationship was perfect, or a fairy tale because it wasn’t. Sure we had our moments.” She paused with a smile on her face. “But what you really need to know now is that relationships are hard.”
“What do you mean?”
“You might not realize it but Dave’s parents were pretty well off. It allowed him to be stupid and have freedom. Who else can chase a girl a thousand miles away because he had a feeling? Most people can’t afford to take that risk without knowing there is at least a chance. He had no clue. And I made him work for it to because I didn’t think he realized that he was living in a different world than the rest of us.”
“But isn’t that part of the charm?”
“Charm? Yes. But also very naïve. 99 out of a 100 that’s not going to work. I don’t want you chasing women with these odds. You’re going to get hurt.”
“I can’t even find a woman worth chasing anymore. They’re all caught up in themselves or chasing guys that don’t care about them.” She laughed.
“Let them. We all learn at our own pace. Just because you’re 23 doesn’t mean all people your age have the same maturity and knowledge of the way the world works. But part of the charm is finding these things out. It’ll be fun. It’ll get you hurt. But you have enough time to bounce back and learn. But that’s not why I brought you out there.”
“Why did you bring me out here then? Other then to sober me up?”
“Do you remember how I met your Grandpa?” She asked.
“He saw you on the boat back to the states and was drawn to you. He approached you and you played hard to get. He had to settle for your address to send you letters.”
“Right. And then he waited at the post office for days waiting for me to arrive right?”
“Yeah.” She smiled.
“Your Grandpa had already met me. I was a volunteer nurse aid. We had met through friends of friends type of thing. When he saw me on the boat it was his third or fourth time he had seen me and he forgot my name so I wouldn’t tell him. He only got my address through one of those friends. Except it wasn’t a post office. It was my actual parents home. I was still living with them at the time. When he found out he was terrified and didn’t know what to do. So he stayed in town for a few days until he waited for me to come home and ambushed me before my parents saw.” I sat there stunned.
“What?! But why would he lie about that?”
“Your Grandpa has always been a bit of a story teller. And we wanted you to believe in love and fate and karma. There was really no downside to it. It’s just a story. But the way I see you right now. I feel like you need to hear this.”
“So you’re meaning to tell me my hero my whole life has been lying to me?”
“In a way, yes he lied to you, but really he just embellished a few things. A lot of his stories really are true. But right now let’s not be concerned with them. You need to hear something from me.”
“What’s that?” I scoffed.
“All relationships are hard. They’re the hardest thing you could ever do. But don’t be the one to quit. After awhile you’ll find the right one. And that’s the one that’ll stick. That’s what your Grandpa was great at. He never quit.” I couldn’t say a word after that. I just put my head down and let the tears fall where they may. My Grandma came over and sat on the log beside me and wrapped her arm around me and placed her head on my shoulder.
B. B. R. 
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