by Edward Fays
Sometimes in life, it’s the people we never meet who have the most dramatic impact on us—a grand hero who thrived centuries ago or a writer whose words reach the depths of our soul. Other times, it’s someone we see each day who helps mold us into a stellar human being. Grandpa Jack’s gift of storytelling transformed the way I perceive the world and the universe, and his legacy and teachings continue to influence my decisions.
Often I have broken from the crowd and stood alone. I found it difficult, but he was right—with the courage to stand alone and risk being wrong also comes the sweet vindication of having the foresight of knowing what’s to come and what is waiting to be revealed.
Thanks to his advice I have stepped into the abyss, and—like looking into an unfamiliar region of outer space—I have been delighted with what I discovered about myself and my ability to perform in an uncertain world.
Inspired by WILLIAM J. KEATON
A Lesson Learned from a Life Lived
Someday we will all depart from this world.
The significance of that statement has changed for me over the years. When I was young, it didn’t faze me. Death was a distant star, beyond my realm of thought. Like most young people, I didn’t see any point in thinking about my own mortality. I was too busy living to spend time worrying about dying. What I failed to realize, however, was that thinking about my death could have helped me better plan my life.
Now that I am faced with the reality that my life is drawing to a close, I see things differently. I don’t sit around thinking about it all day, but I don’t ignore it either. I can’t. I have learned not to.
These days I think about the choices I have made and the legacy I’ll leave behind. What will people think of me? Will they think of me? What should I have done differently? These are the questions people ponder as they near the end of their lives.
It’s disturbing to think that someday I will be forgotten. Where will the pictures of me end up ten, twenty, or fifty years from now? There is something scary about dying and being forgotten. Did I make a difference? Did my life have meaning? For me, being forgotten is like drifting aimlessly in space. You are out there, somewhere, but no one knows you exist. So now, with the time that I have left, I am working to build myself a lifeline to the future.
I have always admired people whose names grace the pages of history books, their lives studied by students across the country and around the world. Visionaries such as Einstein and Edison have achieved immortality, but there are also millions of unsung heroes who have helped shape the future for the better. Maybe you know some of them. Perhaps you are one of them. Some are teachers who took an impressionable young soul under their wing and helped guide an ordinary life to an extraordinary adventure.
I could have been a teacher, but that role requires us to learn from our mistakes so we can then pass our knowledge on to younger generations. Unfortunately, I was too focused on my future to ever stop and learn from my past, so I repeated the same mistakes many times. I went through life with blinders on, seeing only what I wanted to see. I did what I thought I should do as the provider for my family, but never questioned if it was the right thing to do. I assumed too much and questioned too little. Late in life, I learned that assuming leads to mistakes and wasted time, while questioning leads to clarity and correct answers.
I valued money more than time, working extra hours to make a few more dollars and always thinking I could make up the time with family and friends … later, tomorrow, or next week. I never did. Now that my time is running out, I would trade all my money for just another day, one that I would spend with my family rather than at the office. But of course I can’t, which is why I have shared my feelings, my remorse. I am hoping this will be my lifeline to the future. Whoever hears my words—my grandchildren, my great-great-grandchildren, anyone, I hope you learn from my mistakes.
Now that my final hours are approaching, my family is here with me. My son talks quietly with the doctor and has a concerned look on his face but has yet to shed a tear for me. My daughter holds my hand like a mannequin; she’s here out of courtesy rather than love. And my grandchildren look at me as if I were a stranger, which to them, I am. I could have lived on in their minds if only I’d taken the time to love and teach them about the things I learned. The mistakes I made.
The end of my life has impelled me to reflect and recognize what I would have done differently. I cannot change the past but I can still learn from it, even in the short time I have left. The wisdom I glean from pondering my history I share with my family and hope it will make a difference in their lives. Because of the actions I take today I pray that someday in the distant future, when my headstone has endured the severity of many frigid winters, someone will find an old picture of me and say, “He was my teacher.”
Inspired by KENNETH TRACY
The Long and the Short of It
It was a whimsical spring day, and Grandma was sitting silently on the front porch of our vacation home. I was a rambunctious six-year-old and hurried over to her eagerly, asking, “Whaddya doin’, Grandma?”
She chuckled and said, “I’m thinking about my life and writing down some of the most important lessons I’ve learned.”
“Can I do that too, Grandma?” I asked zestfully. “Now that I’m in first grade I’m learning new stuff all the time.”
Grandma smiled and peeled off a piece of paper from her yellow legal pad. She handed me a sharpened pencil and I plopped down next to her, eager to remember what I’d learned.
“I learned to share the toys at school with other people.” I wrote that down. “I learned to color inside the lines.” I jotted that down, too. “I learned to finger paint.” I scribbled that one on my paper. I was on a roll—I had three lines filled up! I peeked over at Grandma’s page, and she had all the lines filled up.
“Grandma,” I asked, “why do I only have three lines of things I learned and you have a whole page?”
“That’s because I’m older than you,” she stated without hesitation. “I’ve learned more, because I’ve been around longer.”
“But how can I make my list long like yours?” I asked. “I have a short list but want a long one because that will mean I’m smart.”
Grandma giggled and said, “Well, there are two ways most people learn. The first is through reading books and doing projects at school. The second is through experiences, or what people call trial and error.”
“What’s that, Grandma?”
“That’s when you learn by making mistakes,” she said sharply.
“But aren’t mistakes bad?”
“No. Mistakes help us to learn. Let me show you what I mean. The list of things you learned has three lines. The list of things I learned is longer. Now let’s make a list of the mistakes we’ve made.”
“Okay.”
After a few minutes we compared our lists. Grandma said, “You see, your list of mistakes is short and mine is long. Making mistakes is a natural part of learning.”
“So, Grandma, are you saying that learning and making mistakes go together?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, when I start second grade next year, I’m going to tell my teacher I want to make more mistakes than anyone else in the class!”
Inspired by TRACY GREEN
Stairway to Heaven
His mother was standing at the workbench in the basement, slipping open those shallow drawers where different sizes of nails and screws are kept. She looked peculiar there among the tools. Her lily-white hands and shiny red fingernails were eye catching amid the ruggedness of the gray cutting saw, hammers, and wrenches. He was used to seeing her standing at the sink or the stove and asked, “Mom, what are you doing down here with Daddy’s tools? Building something?”
“No, honey,” she replied. “I’m looking for a nail to hang this picture.”
Taking the framed photograph in his hand, the boy asked, “Who is it?”
“My grandma Gloria. I’m going to pu
t it at the top of the steps so each morning as I head downstairs to start my day I’ll see her face, hear her voice in my mind, and be reminded of all the wonderful things she taught me.” The little boy followed his mom up the stairs and watched as she drove a thin nail into the wall with a couple of light taps.
“Stand back a few feet and tell me if this is straight,” she said, holding the picture and looking back at him, her chin resting on her right shoulder.
“Up a little higher on that side, Mom,” he said, pointing to the left.
“How about that?”
“That’s good. Mom, how come that’s the only picture hanging on our wall?”
“Because we’ve been lucky so far and still have the people we love right here with us. Your great-grandma,” she said, pointing to the picture, “has joined God and the angels in heaven. And this will be our stairway to heaven.”
“But Mom, the first thing at the top of these steps is the bathroom.”
Chuckling, she said, “I know that, honey. What I mean is this wall will be a display for the people who have shaped our lives and have now moved on to the next stage of life.”
With the passing years, as the young boy grew older, more faces were added to that stairway to heaven. It became a shrine for the people who were loved and a way to keep their memories alive. When he was nineteen years old he took the long walk into the basement with his mother to the same workbench and grabbed a nail from the drawer while she slipped a hammer from the leather holster on her husband’s tool belt. That day they hung a picture of her father and his grandfather Nicky on the wall. He was six steps down from the top now.
At thirty-five, that teenage boy had become a man, had his own house and family, and continued the tradition by beginning his own stairway to heaven. For years the only photos that hung on the wall were of his grandparents. When his daughter, Elizabeth, was old enough she asked him, “Who are these people, Daddy?” pointing her delicate little finger high above her head.
“These are your great-grandparents. They were very special people in my life who I loved dearly. You never had the chance to meet them, but they taught me many things and much of what I learned from them I’m sharing with you, so in a way they’re playing a very important role in your life.”
Explaining this to his daughter helped him realize that hanging photos on the wall not only kept the relationship he had with his grandparents alive, but also allowed him to introduce the family from his past to his present family.
As the years rolled on and the man grew older, his stairway to heaven stretched from the top step to the bottom. Photos of his mom and dad were displayed. He hung them with Elizabeth, who made sure they were straight, just as he had many years before. Elizabeth eventually married and gave birth to a little girl. Suddenly her father was a grandpa, but the time he had to spend with his granddaughter would be short. A heart attack claimed him before his grandchild was old enough to know him and appreciate the place he occupied in her life. Until one day, not long after he passed, the little girl saw Elizabeth carrying a hammer, a nail, and a picture and asked, “What are you doing, Mommy?”
“I’m hanging a picture of your grandpa, honey,” she said. “He loved you very much, and even though he didn’t have much time to spend with you he did his best to teach you things. This picture will keep him close to us. I’ll take it down sometimes and tell you stories about him, what he taught me and how much he loved you.”
“What was his name, Mommy?”
“Nicholas. He was named after his grandpa, and I named you after him. That’s how you got the name Nicole.”
She drove the nail into the wall and hung the picture. Standing back a few feet with her hand gently stroking her daughter’s hair, Elizabeth said, “Do you think it looks straight?”
“I think so, Mommy, but who are all these other people hanging on the wall?” she asked.
“Our family, honey. Reminders of where we’ve come from, of the people who have made a difference in our lives, and that my dad and your grandpa will always be with loved ones.”
Inspired by ELIZABETH RYDER
The School of Hard Knocks
My grandmother Mary is not an educated woman. She made it through only the sixth grade before quitting school to help support her family. Although her paycheck was meager, she helped put food on the table and pay the rent. It was a vastly different world than when I was in sixth grade.
There were times when I felt confined to a classroom and preferred to be almost anyplace else, but looking back, sixth grade was the perfect place to be. I was getting an education, completely unaware of the burden my grandmother had faced at the same tender age. How would I have reacted if I had had to quit school and work sweeping floors at an old factory or washing dishes in the back of a restaurant? The thought of it made homework and the occasional trip to the principal’s office look pretty attractive.
Now that I’m out of school I find myself thinking about my grandmother and how hard she labored. Because of her limited education she never got a well-paying job with a desk, comfortable chair, and wall-to-wall carpeting. Instead she dumped fifty-pound bags of flour in giant mixing bowls in the back of a bakery. She worked from the predawn hours until nighttime. My parents took my brothers and me to visit her there when we were kids. For us it seemed like the ideal place to work. Doughnuts, cookies, and sweet rolls were piled high on trays in the glass display cases, and she let us have our share. My grandmother always seemed so happy and at the time I thought it was because she liked her job. Who wouldn’t love to work in a bakery? I thought. But looking back I know it was because she was thrilled to see her grandchildren, so any sign of fatigue washed away. At least for the moment.
During my teen years she worked as a cook at a day care center. Each day she prepared breakfast and lunch for three hundred kids. In between, she cleaned and did prep work. One morning I discreetly wandered in to surprise her with a giant bear hug—but I was the one who got jolted. Peeking from around the corner, I saw my grandmother on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor. The air in the place was hot and gluey; giant pots of soup simmered on the stove. I was thirteen, and old enough to know that I didn’t want my grandma working so hard and in such a dismal place. She’s too good for that, I told myself. When she peered over her left shoulder and saw me standing there, her eyes sparkled. Her hair was a mess and beads of sweat were trickling down her face, but her grim countenance transformed into a smile the moment she saw me. I could see the weary look in her eyes and it broke my heart, but she never complained. I guess a lot of grandchildren feel the same when they hear similar stories of loved ones in their family.
Despite her lack of education, Mary preached the importance of studying hard in school. Although she had virtually no formal education, she valued learning more than most people. Perhaps she saw the significance in it because it was something she never possessed, making it even more valuable.
She liked to say, “I attended the School of Hard Knocks. There are no classrooms and there’s no diploma to hang on the wall. The teacher doesn’t take attendance but the boss checks the time cards. Instead of assigned seats there are assigned stations. And if you keep your eyes and ears open, you can learn a lot about human nature.”
Mary doesn’t know much about politics or that you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition, but she knows about goodness—she can spot it in people a mile away. For where she is now in life, I think that’s the most important thing. Each day she looks for the goodness in others and gives the best of what she has to each person she meets. For an uneducated woman, that’s a brilliant approach to life. For an uneducated woman, it turns out my grandma is very wise.
Inspired by MARY COLUCCI
The Confession
My son, Matthew, was twenty-four and a proud new father, which thrilled my wife, Helena, and me. Matthew spent four years serving his country in the armed forces and met a lovely girl, Erica, overseas. Like many young soldiers living abroad, he
matured quickly and was eager to start a family. Arriving back in the States, he began his career in the computer industry and took night and Saturday classes at the university.
Matthew and Erica purchased a small home, a fixer-upper that was pop-in distance from where my wife and I lived. Of course we visited every day, unable to keep our hands and eyes off our new granddaughter. One Saturday morning Matthew called needing my help.
“Dad, I was wondering if you could spare a few minutes,” he said. “I just got out of class and realized I locked my keys in the car. Would you mind picking me up? I’ve got a spare set at home.”
“Sure,” I said, “that happens to the best of us. I’ll be there in no time.” I arrived fifteen minutes later and saw my son leaning up against his red Honda reading one of his mammoth computer textbooks.
My life was about to change forever.
Matthew had only been stateside a few months and between the baby being born, buying a new house, starting school and a new job, he didn’t have much time to share the details of his years overseas. And he didn’t know about what I’d been up to either. Matthew had no idea that my casual drinking had escalated into a daily ritual. He didn’t know I hid bottles of vodka behind the trash cans in the garage. He never would have guessed that I drank alone, and I was sure he wouldn’t find out that I had been bingeing that morning, gulping down a mouthful before looping into the parking lot where he was waiting for me. He didn’t see that I had braced the bottle between my legs and sealed the cap before stashing it under the passenger seat of the car. I wanted desperately to tell him, hoping that I would find the courage to share my feelings, but the truth was about to emerge on its own.
I hated myself for drinking, so I drank more to numb the biting pain of disappointment within myself. It was a vicious cycle, feeling like I was wrapped in a straitjacket and the only move I could make was hand to mouth.
