There are so many things my grandfather taught me about being a man. I want to share a couple of them.
First, a disclaimer I think he would lecture me about. He was not a man who liked disclaimers, particularly when they pertained to him. He fearlessly lived his life, offered no excuses and sought no approval. Yet, it is necessary for me since he was a fallible man with admirable traits. I am not intending to idolize him here, since he would not have liked that much either.
Adelbert Munyan was a career MP in the United States Army. He served in combat, or so I’m told. He never much talked about it even in those moments when he would try to convince me the Army life was for me. Instead, he quietly went about his life doing all he could. He exposed me to fishing, to boating, to CB radios, and to how to love a woman.
My grandmother, Harriet, was a kind woman. She would call my grandfather “Pop” and he would call her “Mom”. They were always together playing Yahtzee or doing their crossword puzzles. They fished together on their boat in the bay near Barnegat, NJ and often took me as a young boy to the lighthouse there. I never saw two people who knew each other so well, and who never had a harsh word to say to each other. They would argue, but it was never vicious or mean and it always ended quickly.
They taught me how to be a couple, even though it would take decades for me to fully understand their lesson.
My grandfather was a chain smoker who inhaled about 4 packs of unfiltered Pall Malls a day, a habit he picked up in the Army. Needless to say, this did not bode well for a healthy life, especially after 60 years of it. He developed emphysema, a disease which would inevitably kill him.
My grandmother had quit smoking 23 years before it took her husband away. She developed lung cancer in her advanced years, likely caused by her past smoking and living with a chain smoker for most of her adult life. That lung cancer, and a stroke caused by it, eventually took her to a place where I am sure my grandfather was waiting for her, crossword puzzles and Bic pens in hand.
My grandfather was a German/Irish man, very kind (at least in my experience) and very stubborn. I don’t think they invented a word describing how stubborn he was and stubborn doesn’t quite seem to do him justice. He would learn how to use that stubbornness to great effect, and to hang around this earth much longer than anyone believed he could. This story is one I will take with me when I meet my own maker.
In one example, my grandmother found my grandfather in a fetal position on their bed. Apparently, his gall bladder had ruptured inside him after weeks of debilitating pain. They got him to the hospital in time, and his gall bladder was removed.
When I asked him why on earth he would wait so long to go to the doctor his answer was simple. To him anyway.
“I thought I had cancer. I don’t want to leave your grandmother, so I figured if I didn’t know I had cancer that I could beat it.” He had endured weeks of severe pain simply because he didn’t want to leave my grandmother.
My grandfather had an obvious fear of cancer. Even though he smoked like a burning warehouse. Even more so, he feared leaving my grandmother behind as well.
As the years progressed, my grandfather’s conditioned worsened, and they both had to move in with us. They stayed downstairs, and I thought it was odd given that one point my grandfather would have to stop walking every 3 feet or so just to catch his breath. I would ask him if he needed help and he would brush off any suggestion of the kind. He would not need help from anyone except, of course, my grandmother. She began to make both of their breakfast without his help at some point. She would cut the grapefruit, divvy up the prunes and make the poached eggs every morning like clockwork.
Whenever he would go to stand, the conversation would go something like this. I can remember it like it just happened.
“Pop, why don’t you just tell me what you need.”
“I don’t want to be a bother. I can manage, Mom.”
“Don’t be so stubborn. What is it you need?”
He would tell her, and she would get it. Each and every time.
One day, my grandfather was rushed to the hospital. After a battery of tests, the forlorn doctor came to talk to our family.
“I’m afraid he isn’t going to last the night. Please, get your affairs in order and say your goodbyes. I’m sorry, but that time has come.”
Three days later my grandfather was walking in the door of our home. That happened three more times over the next couple of years.
The fifth time came when my grandfather couldn’t move. I hated seeing this big German man who epitomized strength looking so frail and wasted. The fifth time was to be the last. My grandfather died stoned on pain meds, unable to speak. I am sure that was the exact opposite of what he would have wanted.
He did, however, have the final word. He had left a cassette tape for us before he left. My mom played it for us.
In it, he asked my parents to leave me alone. He told them that I was a good boy with great potential, and that all they had to do was lay off me. I will never forget those words, it seemed like that was the first time I had heard anyone ever say something like that about me.
My grandfather, that man of few words, also explained why he survived all of those trips to the hospital. I will never forget his words.
“The truth is I love my wife. I love her more than life, and I never wanted to leave her. The day I met her was the best day of my life, and I’ve loved her every day since. She’s stood by me, loved me, cared for me, and never once complained. She’s been my partner, my voice of reason and I am just sad that I have to leave her now. I’ve been lucky to have been with her this long.
But I am tired. I’ve given this my all, and it’s time for me to go. I don’t want to burden you anymore, and I don’t have anything left inside. Mom, I will see you someday soon, but don’t make it too soon. I love you all, and Mom…I am always with you.”
I am writing this with the same tears I shed that day listening to it.
My grandfather taught me how to love a woman. He also taught me how to be loved by a woman. See, the story isn’t so powerful if my grandmother hadn’t been the type of woman who inspired my grandfather to survive horrible odds time and time again. He may have been the inspired one, but she was his inspiration.
My grandfather surprised even the best medical doctors in our area, but he didn’t surprise me. I think that part of him lives on in me, and the more I open up the more I understand him.
