Of Grandparents and Regrets

Originally posted on myspace December 30, 2005

I remember my maternal grandfather fondly. He and my grandmother lived in a large two story house in Magnolia Texas. The house was in the woods, recessed about fifty yards from the road and enclosed by pine trees. There was a porch that spanned the entire front of the house, and was also two story so that there was an upstairs porch over the lower one. My grandparents had it built in the sixties, but by the time I came around it felt ancient. The whole house was built out of dark thick heavy wood. The outside was painted a shade of green that was originally a sea-foam. Time and weather had darken some areas, lightened others so that the house looked like a moss covered hill that had the front carved away into a sheer face. The base of the porch was concrete as the foundation slab extended out. Hanging from the rafters of the porch was a chair. The chair was a black leather piece, with firm armrests. The legs were gone and it hung from chains about two and a half feet from the ground. Lining the wall of the house at its base was a collection of wooden and clay carvings. Mostly masks with pointed teeth and bulls with broken horns, this small audience of immobile watchers observed the forest with a fixed eye. Also hanging from the rafters of the porch were several hanging plants, a birdfeeder or two, and some wooden wind chimes. Wooden wind chimes do not ring, nor do they tingle; instead the give a hollow thunking noise. It was the only noise outside at my grandparents house. The wind didn’t rustle the leaves, but it teased the wooden wind chimes erratically. But for this, the woods were silent; still. In lighter moments the sound conjured a troop of gnomes dancing slowly in wooden shoes; in darker moments I envisioned a blind witch gliding through the forest gently rapping on trees with her cane, searching for the house and a meal of grandchild.

The front door of the house was a large solid wooden affair stained black. In the center was a pewter head of a Mayan priest, his earrings meeting under his chin to form a knocker. The interior of the house was carpeted in a brown shag, only slightly lighter than the wood paneling. The furniture was of wrought iron and dark wood in the style of Spanish missions. The fireplace was on the right as you entered the house. It was large and perpetually black with soot. The fire was kept going in the winter. My grandparents smoked constantly, and the house had a permanent haze that turned reality surreal. They went to Mexico frequently, and my grandmother had knickknacks and curios spread throughout the house of the most odd sort. A sleeping Mexican in a sombrero next to a dried lizard husk. Woody Woodpecker on top of a rattlesnake’s rattle. A stuffed crow. Pictures of matadors were everywhere, as were bulls. For a young boy it was creepy but thrilling. There always seemed to be closets unexplored, things unexamined. Curiosities for the curious. My grandfather sat in the swing/chair on the porch frequently. He was a bald man of medium height, perhaps 5’8” no more than 5’10”. The remaining hair that ringed his pate was still jet black and trimmed close. He was always clean-shaven though if I remember he had a horrible five o’clock shadow. Rotund in the middle, but by no means fat, he maintained an air of energy in spite of his careful movements. I remember his laugh the most. He always seemed to be laughing. He paid quite a bit of attention to me but never in a condescending way. He never spoke down to me, never changed his voice, spoke to me in the same manner he spoke to everyone adult or child. Most of my memories of him are from before the age of seven. He wore slacks and a white short-sleeved dress shirt. He always had a pen and his glasses case in his breast pocket. The swing out front was his chair, and his alone but he let me sit in it. Not once in all my memories did he show himself to be anything other than warm and loving. It wasn’t until later that I first heard the word alcoholic.

Jack Correu (my grandfather) was born in Laredo Texas, the son of Daniel Correu (my brother’s namesake). Daniel Correu was a doctor who came over from Mexico. My grandfather was extremely upset that he apparently had Mexican blood, and to his dying day thought his lineage was “tainted”. His brother, my great uncle Lawrence who officiated over my wedding, proved this to be false. Two brothers fled Spain for unknown reasons, although the family theory involves the priesthood. One went to South America, supposedly the reluctant priestly candidate, and the other settled in Cuba. He took a Cuban wife, and his son took a Cuban wife as well. This son took his wife to Mexico and had my great grandfather. Daniel Correu hopped the border into Texas and settled in Laredo. Uncle Lawrence went to Spain a few years back and found an old farm house called the Correu Farm. He was overjoyed to have traced his ancestors, and there the story of the Correus ends as far as my family is concerned. My grandfather grew up in Laredo, and went to war in World War 2. It is from his side of the family that I get my hearing loss, and he passed the hearing tests in the air force by bribing the officiators. I don’t know exactly what he did or what rank he held. For some reason I think he worked with or in bombers.

My grandmother was in the army. I don’t know if they met in the War or after. She was named Katherine Funkenhauser (Sp?) but everyone called her Kitty. She was born in Virginia but wound up in Texas after the War, suggesting that she met my grandfather during the War. I think I still have a great aunt or uncle in Virginia somewhere. I don’t know for sure, we had no interaction with my grandmother’s family that I’m aware of. My grandmother was a nurse stationed in Germany. The nurses got to ride in the back of transports, and the G.I.s walked in file behind. They had a small contingent of men that walked in front of the trucks and threw the bodies onto the side of the road, the reasoning being that it was unsanitary for the troops to walk through the muck after the transports had rolled over the bodies. One day while traveling down a dusty farm road in this manner, the distance sounds of gunfire could be heard. My Grandmother was frightened. Women, especially nurses, were not allowed to bear arms which caused her to be anxious at times. After hearing the gunfire she asked the G.I. walking behind the truck if he would get her a gun. He stripped a Ruger pistol off of a German officer lying beside the road and gave it to her. She kept it through the war, and gave it to me about ten years ago. I’ve still got it though my father keeps it for me.

It wasn’t the only memento she brought back. She also brought back a purple cloth covered with silver swastikas that she took from a Hitler Youth podium. And her notes. She was with the first medical group to enter into a concentration camp. I can’t remember which camp, but it was the third largest. She was asked to be a scribe and took notes while the captain of the liberating soldiers interrogated the Nazi Colonel who was in charge of the camp. She keep her notes. It’s chilling to read. Ten thousand dead by gas on Tuesday. Two thousand dead by firing squad on Wednesday. My mother brought the podium cloth and the notes to school when I was in the fifth grade, to give a lecture on World War 2. I had heard about WW2, read about it, and talked about it. But it wasn’t truly real until I heald that podium cloth in my hands. This was history. This was reality. It wasn’t in a book, wasn’t on TV, it wasn’t even in a museum behind a protective glass.

It was in my hands.

However they met, my grandparents had three kids. My mother, the oldest, and my Aunt Susan and my Uncle Jack. And my grandfather was an alcoholic. He would fly into drunken rages. He threw things. He was extremely verbally abusive. I don’t know if he was ever physically abusive, but I do know his kids were punished with the belt.

When my folks got married, my grandmother started bringing my grandfather over to my parents house when he was too drunk for her to control. It climaxed when she brought him and he was roaring drunk in the front yard on a Saturday, raving at the top of his lungs. My father, in a fury, flew out of the house and physically forced him into the car. My mother was terrified that dad was going to physically beat him. She told my grandmother that they weren’t welcome anymore. I don’t think my grandfather ever came back to the house. He certainly didn’t while I was alive. Interestingly enough, my father has never said a harsh word about my grandfather. Whatever his opinion is, he guards it around me and Daniel. The harshest thing I think he’s said was “Like all drunks, your grandfather could be an asshole.” He didn’t say it with vehemence. He just said it. For his part my grandfather loved my father enormously. He was so proud and fond of his son in law.

When I was just going into middle school my grandfather drank himself into such a stupor that he poisoned himself. Alcohol poisoning. When they revived him a good portion of his mind was gone. He took up residence in a nursing home and was bedridden for the remainer of his life. He had dementia. I saw him annually through the years. He reacted to Daniel at first, but we realized he thought my brother was his father. He lost the ability to speak. A year later he lost the ability to make noises, to vocalize. Then one day the last of his brain quietly gave up. He slipped into a coma. They fed him through a tube. From the moment he first went into the nursing home until the end my grandmother visited him every single day.

My grandmother loved me so much. She lived for the moments when I visited her. She would clip the crossword puzzles and the jokes from the kids section of the Houston Chronicle and save them for me. And I was a little indifferent. My dad’s parents gave me G.I. Joes. This grandma gave me bits of old newspaper. Everyday she clipped stuff she thought I would like. She went on walks in the woods and brought back skulls and teeth. Feathers she had found. She carefully placed them in tins or small cloth bags and saved them for me. Oh I was appreciative, but I just saw some junk. Interesting, but junk none the less. I never stopped to think about the time she put into those gifts. Or how alone she was, by herself in the woods in a moldering old house.
She visited my grandfather everyday. Sometimes twice a day. Before he lost the powers of speech, he interacted with her. For her he became lucid. And when he spoke to her, he knew her. Over the years she became confused. My Uncle Jack moved in with her. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. We would visit her, or mom would bring her out to us. She would sit quietly with a smile. One day in the middle of the conversation she looked at my brother and said, “You’re Daniel.” Then she looked upset. I realize we had all gone silent and she though she had said the wrong thing. Daniel reached out and took her hand and gave her a big warm smile and said, “Yes grandma. I am.” My mother tried to make it to the bathroom before she start crying. She failed.

My grandfather had been in a coma for ten years with no improvement. For that whole time he had been fed through a tube. After conferring with the doctors my mother began to ask her aunts, her uncles, and her siblings if it was time to let him go. They shied from the question, avoided it, and said they’d support mom whatever her decision. In the end, my mother all alone took the responsibly. She signed the papers. The feeding tube was removed. At the moment of action, in the nursing home, she turned to her mother and tried to explain what was about to happen and why. My grandmother cut her off, placed her hand on my mother’s, and said simply, “I understand.” It took my grandfather a month and a half to starve to death. The doctors said they had never seen a man with such vitality.

My mother knows she did the right thing. And in the back of her eyes in quite moments, you can see the price she paid for doing the right thing.

A couple of years ago I went to my mother and asked her about my grandfather. All my memories of him were of this loving warm man. A man with a jolly laugh. And all the stories I had heard painted him as an abusive alcoholic. So I asked my mom, did he have any good qualities? I was desperate to find that jolly laugh in the memories of another. To affirm my memories. To see if I had inherited any traits from him besides a taste for alcohol. My mother took a long pause. And then she began to talk. And the other half of the man, my grandfather, came into view. He was known for his honesty. He never cheated on anything, for any reason. He was never in debt his whole life. He never borrowed money. When he gave his word, he kept it, regardless of the consequences. He refused to participate in anything, including conversations, that he though was unjust. He had a firm personal code of honor that he refused to compromise. But most powerful of all, my mother said he had more capacity for love than any man she’d ever met. And that he loved me very much. My grandmother now moved into a nursing home. Mom put her in one close by her (my mother’s) house. Mom said she always asked about me. Slowly my grandmother’s health failed.

People talk about love. What is it? How do you know when you’re in love? And I am often accused of being unromantic, a cynic when it comes to love. Do you want to know what love really is? Because I’ve seen it. Love is fighting through dementia, love is somehow when you have lost even your identity, being able to look at some one and know I love you. When you know only one thing, not your name, not your past, not even how to speak, you know only one thing: I love this person. Being in love is never having nothing. Don’t talk to me about passion, about love at first sight, of feeling sad when someone’s gone. True love is about always having the ability to feel that love. Always.

My grandmother did not survive my grandfather long. She didn’t make it through the year.

I didn’t visit her once.



And now I never can.