My Grandfather

My grandfather on my mother's side has had a profound influence on my life, even though he lived across the country and I only saw him a handful of times.

As a teenager I was starting my computer career and was finding myself annoyed by friends and family members who wanted me to solve their computer problems. So when I overheard my grandfather talking about a conversation in which he had given some long-distance washing machine repair lessons to his son-in-law, I made the comment, “isn't it annoying?”–referring to family menbers constantly needing help. He looked at me, and in the sternest rebuke I ever received from him, said, “No, he's family!” The conversation between us ended there, but I have never forgotten his rebuke, and in all truth it has affected many of my attitudes and decisions regarding family since that time.

Also my grandpa spoke periodically about education. Though he had never earned his college degree, he knew the value of one. He told me that a college degree was a key that would open closed doors. When I started college after getting married and then dropped out, I heard second-hand that he had commented, “I thought that's what he'd do.” I felt his disappointment, and I think it was one of the driving factors in my subsequent return to college, this time to follow through and earn my degree. I spoke at graduation when I received my Associate's degree, and mentioned my grandpa's views on education that had influenced me.

[*20091223 note - when I graduated in 2005 with my MBA, my grandpa offered to fly me and my family to Florida as a graduation present, so we could stay with him and go to Disney World. We took him up on the offer in April 2006.]

I heard a story from my grandfather once about how he quit smoking. When he was in the Navy he had just disembarked from a ship, where for a period of time he had experienced the constant motion of the ocean. He was smoking a cigarette on dry land when a very sea-like wave of nausea overtook him. Looking at the cigarettes and suspecting that they were the cause of his troubles, he put them down and never picked them up again.

He died in January 2013, but I still want to give him reasons to be proud of me.