Friday, March 2, 2012

Grandpa Broccoli

“I love broccoli in the morning.  I love broccoli in the night.  I love broccoli every day, every night.  I love broccoli with all my might.” –silly song by Tony Meloni (My Dad)


I didn’t know either of my grandfathers very well.  In fact, my paternal grandfather died the year I was born.  There are only shadowy recollections of my mother’s father: There was the throaty laugh, the ever-present cigar clenched between his widely-spaced two front teeth and the dark dampness of his wine cellar.  He tended to be rather stern and, though he loved us, he wasn’t demonstrative. Certainly he wasn’t the type to sit beside us reading stories or taking us for walks. I don’t recall him being anything like my father, who believes in “hug therapy” and has fooled every little kid who has walked into his house into believing there’s a dog in the next room, with the best imitation of a canine I’ve ever heard. He even owns a Goldilocks and the Three Bears puppet, the flipover kind with Goldilocks on one end, the three bears on the other.  

 My father loves every one of his seventeen grandchildren and has a unique relationship with each one of them.  These days he tires easily, but still insists that the younger ones be allowed to make noise and enjoy the time they spend at his house.  He likes to say, “Look at that! I love to see these kids running around. It’s just wonderful to have them here. I tell you, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

 He is Grandpa to all of them except for the second grandson. To that one and that one only, he is Grandpa Broccoli.

When he was born the day before Dad’s birthday, my father arrived at the hospital concerned and anxious to make things all better for me.  I had said the words Down syndrome on the phone, but when he sat next to my bed, I realized I needed to use the antiquated term, mongoloid, to make him understand.  He kept patting my arm and telling me the baby would be all right.  At the time I took it to mean that he thought the baby would “grow out of it” and that he misunderstood.  In retrospect, I think it was simply an affirmation of his hope and his faith in our family’s ability to make everything all right for this child.

The significance of the closeness grandfather and grandchild share is not lost on my husband and me.  There are friends, but no best friend with whom Cliff can spend the hours, and no cousins his age who take an interest in him when we visit.  But on our trips to New York, when Dad enthusiastically greets him with “It’s Clifford Broccoli!” they both erupt into peals of laughter; perhaps my statement that Cliff has no best friend is not altogether true. Cliff has an appreciation for the ridiculous, and my father has a particularly proficient talent for silliness; even at his age he remembers the words and phrases that make kids laugh.  His imagination for the preposterous appeals to Cliff’s unique sense of humor.  (“I’m getting you broccoli for your birthday!” and “It’s time for Grandpa to get all the broccoli and put it in the toilet bowl!”)

The unique connection they have is unparalleled. As my son has gotten older, my eighty-six- year- old father is the only one of my family who has been able to go with the flow, as it were, of a kid with the sensibilities of a young man and the frustrations inherent in having a disability.  He has great difficulty with communication so that talking to people can sometimes seem like too much work. But Dad’s approach is simple: start singing, tell a silly story, and then segue into easy conversation that requires yes or no answers.  It works every time.

This month marks twenty-seven years of celebrating their birthdays together. Every year is the same: they sit at the dining room table, chairs pushed close together. They grin broadly as we sing “Happy Birthday” to my mother’s accompaniment on the piano. When it’s time to blow out the candles, I’m pretty sure Dad only pretends to blow so that Cliff can get the undiluted thrill of blowing them all out himself.
 
The silent prayer I often whisper for please just one more year has been answered time after time. But time can be our friend, or not. When the day comes that Cliff is blowing out his candles without his buddy next to him at the dining room table, I know I will have to explain the unexplainable.  But I’ve already decided what to say.  I’ll just tell him he’s been assigned a new guardian angel.

 







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