Photo courtesy of Molly Brennan

My grandfather died this week at the age of 88. We were all so lucky and thankful to be there with him and for the fact that he didn’t suffer for as long as he could have. Sitting in his hospital room while he floated in and out of consciousness, I thought about the legacy my grandfather will leave.

He was a husband for 66 years and a parent for almost that long. He was a solider in the Battle of the Bulge, he was a geologist and a banker and a gifted athlete. He was smart and funny, and was always the life of the party. But I wouldn’t say that he was the best father or even grandfather.

He was part of a generation that didn’t embrace parenting as we parents do now. He wasn’t as sensitive or thoughtful or even as kind as he could have been to his children. Being a parent was not the defining experience of his life like it is for my generation. I doubt he spent a lot of time worrying about what school his kids would go to or whether they had the right amount of extracurriculars or if they had a strong sense of self-esteem. He probably didn’t tell his children or his grandchildren that he loved them or that he was proud of them often enough. But still, there we all were, accompanying him on his journey out of this world and onto whatever is next for him with sadness and love and a deep feeling of gratitude for having had him in our lives.

Like most families, my family is dysfunctional, though I do believe that we’ve taken it to a new level in many ways. I have not always felt close to my grandparents and often wished they were the baking-cookies and telling-stories type of grandparents, but that’s not what I got. Instead I got golf clubs and cocktail hour and dinner parties and neuroses and high drama in that silent, confusing way that WASP families seem to deliver so well. But I also got literature and trips to the theater and museums and a deep appreciation for smarts and wit.

My grandparents were barely in their 50s when I was born; they weren’t ready for that role, and circumstances required them to play a big part in my upbringing when I was young. I think they didn’t know how to be “good” grandparents any more than I really know how to be a “good” mother. So, like all of us who aren’t sure of how to act or be, they muddled their way through with mixed results. But still, we were all there. No one hated him, no one’s life was completely screwed up, and everyone sat around thinking up funny stories about Big John, the name I gave him as a toddler that stuck for the rest of his life.

And I realized that he may not have told me that he loved me very often or do many grandfatherly things with me, but I know without question that he did love me and he was proud of the person I have become.

There was something profoundly comforting for me in that realization. I may not know what I’m doing as a mother and I’m undoubtedly making mistakes every single day. But in the end, all of those mistakes will not weigh as heavily as the knowledge of my love and my fervent desire to do right by my children. I wrote Big John’s obituary with a sense of honor and pride, and I realized that it was OK that he did a lot of things wrong as a parent. His children and grandchildren loved him and appreciated him for all of the things he did right.

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