- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 1
-
Sparkle (0)
I consider myself to be a pretty thankful person. I try to mentally list all the haves in my life before I go to bed at night. It’s my own kind of prayer. My family is always right there at the top of the list, and I never forget to mention my grandparents. This was my first Thanksgiving away from home. Since I just moved to Atlanta, I made the choice to stay in the area for Thanksgiving and go to Virginia for Christmas. Until this year, I’d spent every Thanksgiving at my grandparent’s house in Virginia Beach.
As Thanksgiving approached, I was pretty bummed thinking about my family and all the food I would miss out on. My grandpa always cooks the ham and turkey, and each family brings a side dish. All the usual stuff like candied yams, green bean casserole, stuffing, cornbread, split-top rolls (which we like to call coochie rolls…) and lots of mashed potatoes. We double up on mashed potatoes because one year we ran out before my aunt had any, a tragedy we still refer to as the year of the potato famine. To cheer myself up on the eve of Thanksgiving, I sat down to watch that new sit-com, Modern Family. I like the show. I enjoy a little dysfunction, especially when it’s funny. The theme usually involves some family drama that, in the end, is always beat out by putting family first. My family has a talent for making light of the negative, so I guess I can relate. But this Thanksgiving, our glass-half-full philosophy was tested more than ever before. About halfway through the show, I got a call from my mom. “Jaimie,” she cried, “Daddy died.” By Daddy, she meant my grandpa Owens, the charismatic leader of every household in my family. I fell to the floor and sobbed into the palms of my hands.
Yes, it is common to lose a grandparent, especially as an adult, but my family is uncommonly close. We actually like each other and get along. My cousins are my best friends, and our moms are each other’s best friends. Before I moved to Georgia, I spent every family gathering, from Easter to a cousin’s graduation, at my grandparent’s house. It is there that we pack in our family of 50. Yes, that’s right, 50: two grandparents, seven daughters, six sons-in-law, 19 grandchildren, three grandsons-in-law, one granddaughter-in-law, and 12 great grandchildren. We have to have family gatherings at my grandparent’s house because we can’t really fit anywhere else, and we’d probably be too damn loud. The Owens family is sort of known for breaking out into song or dance, putting on an impromptu skit, making up games that usually involve physical activity, or telling some hilarious story we’ve heard a million times. I’ve seen my aunts stand up and dance in restaurants or bust a groove in their seats. We can’t help ourselves. So, it’s usually best to keep us behind the safe doors of my grandparent’s home.
Thanks to my grandmother, I was able to fly home on a last-minute ticket to mourn the loss of the man I admire most in the world. The grief I feel for this loss is multi-layered because I am so close to each member of our huge family, and I am sad for them as much as I am for myself. It’s not just the big family gatherings where he will be missed, like Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. My grandpa went to countless graduations, weddings, births, birthdays, Sunday dinners, and sports events. And, he was the one to call if you needed something fixed in your house or if your car broke down. If you mentioned something wasn’t working so well, he would fix it that day or go out and buy you a new one.
My grandpa was the son of a fisherman from Gloucester, Virginia. His family moved to Norfolk, Virginia just before he was born. He claimed he was delivered by a horse doctor, and he always told the story neighing and kicking his hooves. His mother died fairly young, leaving his dad to raise eight children on his own. There wasn’t much work to be found during the depression, so as Grandpa told it, his family moved, “every time the rent came due.” They chose Norfolk so the boys in the family could join the Navy and the girls could marry sailors. And, that’s exactly what they did. My grandpa joined the Navy underage at 17. He
