It’s Grandpa’s birthday.
And like every year since the year he died, he’s the first thing I think of when I wake up, on this day. He’s been dead a longer portion of my life than he was alive, but I still miss him hugely.
Right now, thoughts of him are closer to the surface than usual, because of the boat. Grandpa was a sailor in the Navy in WWII, and I have a photo of him in his Navy blues on my wall. Grandpa retained a fondness for All Things Boat throughout the rest of his life, and I can’t help but think that he’d have enjoyed this next part of my life. Maybe it’s weird, or macabre, but we scattered his ashes at sea (off the end of the old Venice Pier), and I have this thought that he’s always going to be in the sea I sail upon.
One of the things that came to my family upon Grandpa’s death was a brass plaque that says “Captain’s Quarters.” The Bear had chosen it, of all Grandpa’s things, as his token to remember him by. And he passed it to me this Christmas, because it belongs on the boat. A daily reminder of Grandpa, coming on adventures with me.
This morning, though, I woke up thinking about the dolls.
My Grandpa was a traveller. He was constantly going to Europe, to South and Central America, across the US. He took advantage of his relative familial freedom (Grandpa was single pretty much for my entire life), to do some hardcore globetrotting. And every place he went, he brought me back a doll. If he could manage it, they’d be folk art; handmade, local, reflective of the art and spirit of the local people. If not, they’d be more mainstream, like the Madame Alexander dolls that wear a “local costume”. I treasured those dolls, and when I went away to college, I packed them away carefully, and they haven’t been out of their box since.
In my dreams last night, I took them out of the box and displayed them in a glass case.
One by one, my subconscious unwrapped them, and pondered them. Brazil, Costa Rica, Russia, Guatemala, Panama, China, Japan… in glorious expression of native culture, my dolls were there in the case. And once I was done, and they were all displayed… there were empty shelves in the case.
Clearly, Grandpa wants me to carry on the tradition of the dolls.
So from here on out, when our boat makes port, the boys and I are on a Mission, to find Grandpa’s Dolls. In all the travels I’ve done so far, I’d forgotten about them, so clearly, I have some catching up to do. But we can start from Puerto Rico, where the boat is now, and go from there.
Isn’t it funny, how the dead can be so incredibly alive, and so insistent, within our thoughts? Why the dolls? Why now? I have no idea. But I am just sure that Grandpa, whose answer to every question about his plans or schedule was “wherever the wind blows me”, must know something about boats, and about dolls, and even though this might have nothing to do with anything, it’s another way I can honor him, and so I will.
Happy Birthday, Grandpa. I miss you.
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