Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, 1/16/19
My maternal grandfather was one of the best men I’ve ever known. It’s true that my memories of him have a kind of mythic quality. He was born in 1899 and died in his mid-’80s when I was in my sophomore year of college. We didn’t actually think it was possible for Pepère to die. He was driving and cooking for himself up until two days before he died.
Pepère was one of 11 kids born on a farm in Saint-Pie, Quebec. He told us stories about eating skunk pie and working with his brothers. After he moved to the United States and married my grandmother, he made his living as a carpenter who raised Thanksgiving turkeys on the side. Until the final week of his life, I’m sure that he could pound a 3 1/2-inch nail into a board with three strikes of his hammer. He never missed.
My grandfather’s life was not easy. For years, his mother-in-law, father-in-law and one of my grandmother’s brothers lived with him and his young family. From all accounts, my great-grandmother was a tyrant whose main goal was to make others as unhappy as she was. But Pepère was unfailingly kind and generous.
Later in life, my grandmother’s diabetes would leave her a double amputee. My grandfather spent time inventing little gadgets to make it easier to move her from her wheelchair to the car or give her a bit more independence in the kitchen. He took care of her, and then he outlived her by several years.
All of his grandkids adored him — probably because Pepère always had a snack or a pack of gum in one of his pockets. These small treats would appear seemingly out of nowhere. My niece nicknamed him “PepèreCheeseball.”
As a kid, I couldn’t understand when my friends didn’t know what my grandfather was saying. He spoke English tainted with Quebecois, and I think he probably spoke Quebecois tainted with English. He had his own sayings, like: “Throw me down the stairs my shoes,” “They park the cars side by each,” and “That’s the best damned soup I never ate!” And then there were the curse words in some kind of medieval French. He was such a character.
I remember watching candlepin bowling with him on the occasional Sunday. When he died, we found baggies filled with paperclips, twist ties and rubberbands. He had lived through the Great Depression, and he never threw anything away. Most of what counted for decoration in Pepère’s apartment were these lacquered wooden plaques with corny cartoons and sayings on them.
My favorite of these plaques is one that I still refer to today. It said, “Worry is like a rocking chair, it keeps you busy but never gets you anywhere.” Pepère had so much to take care of for most of his life, yet this was his philosophy. He knew that worrying about a problem wasn’t going to change the outcome, but it would waste a lot of time and energy. Besides, if you were building a house, spending too much time thinking about your worries would probably mean that you’d miss the nail and hit your thumb.
When I’m working with a student who seems to be letting worries get in the way of going to class and getting work done, I channel this philosophy. Sometimes, I tell them the story of my grandfather and his sayings and how this one continues to resonate with me.
It’s striking that my grandfather, who lived through so much, didn’t seem to develop the habit of worrying. In my memory, he was someone who planned what he needed to do but was also able to live in the moment. He did what had to be done without complaint, and he always seemed to have a funny joke or story to tell.
Like many people, I tend to worry, and I can get caught up in the cycle of “what ifs?” It’s taken practice, and I think I’ve gotten better at letting go of the worry, particularly as my kids get older and I’m not as worried about them being in mortal danger all of the time. (It’s true that I once catastrophized about an airplane dropping its load of frozen waste on my 2-year-old daughter.)
Sometimes, when I catch myself worrying, I think about Pepère and his sayings — especially the one with the picture of the rocking chair. I don’t know what happened to the original plaque. Maybe one of my cousins has it. I think I’ll have to start looking for one of my own, but if I can’t find it, I’ll still have Pepère’s voice in my head with his idiosyncratic accent telling me that “Worry is like a rocking chair, it keeps you busy but never gets you anywhere.”