On legacies (or: Telling my grandkids what they should think of me)

My grandfather turned 90 at the end of January. We celebrated by throwing him a big party.

This probably conjures up a very specific image in your mind. Namely of a feeble, wheelchair-bound, largely incoherent old man drooling on himself while his children and grandchildren--somewhat condescendingly--sing Happy Birthday to him while trying to force feed him cake.

But you've obviously never met my poppy.

My poppy is part leprechaun, part Greek god. He drives his car every day. He cooks all his own meals. His singing voice booms louder than the rest of the congregation at church services. He would win in a dance off. He has better skin than I do. He's an incredibly rad dude, and as I (literally) waltzed around my packed living room with him at his party, I couldn't help but feel incredibly lucky, not only because I've been blessed with an awesome man as my grandfather, but also because I've been given so much time to spend and make memories with him.

As part of my birthday gift to him, I pieced together a massive sideshow of old and recent pictures and video messages from family members, set to some of his favourite songs. It was incredible to sift through a lifetime of photographs, many depicting my grandfather as the adorable little white-haired man I've always known him to be, but some showing him at moments in his life I've never witnessed - as a fiancé, a young father, or a five-foot tall Adonis with impressively red chest hair.

I found myself wondering what my grandfather was like at my age. I wonder how he envisioned his life turning out. What his favourite pastimes were. How he went about wooing my grandmother. Whether he and I would have gotten along.

We so often forget that our parents and grandparents exist beyond our very narrow conceptions of them.

I desperately hope that my relationship with my future grandkids is comparable to mine and my grandfather's. So to those future grand kids: I really hope you exist somewhere down the road, and I dedicate this entry to you. I’ve probably become very tired and jaded and forgetful. I bet I talk to myself and constantly complain about my physical ailments. Apologies. Please know that I was once young, and coherent(ish), and (somewhat) less cranky, and that we probably could have been friends:

• Nanny drank a lot of beer in her day.
• In a similar vein, Nanny was a pretty great drunk. She usually didn't get sloppy or out of hand - alcohol just amped up her sense of humour and destroyed what little social filter she had when sober.
• Nanny wasted a lot of time resenting her hair and buying products to fix it.
• Nanny knows what it's like to be pain-in-your-guts, warm-in-your-pants in love.
• Nanny had a pretty nasty sense of humour. She liked to make people laugh and generally succeeded by a) making fun of others, and/or b) voicing acerbic observations that no one else wanted to voice.
• Nanny found her greatest joy in singing. She also used to play guitar, but her fingers are probably too arthritic to do that anymore.
•  Nanny was generally considered to have a pretty respectable rack. She referenced it more than was acceptable in polite conversation.
• Your great grandparents and great-great-grandparents were pretty awesome people, and Nanny like them a lot. Nanny's poppy could yodel. Her grandmother drove a VW bus in the 1960s. Her dad built a 1980 Mini from the ground up. Her mom shared her wicked sense of humour, but was infinitely more glamorous than Nanny and never left the house without a full face of makeup.
• Nanny used to regularly drive around town in her car, singing show tunes loudly.
• Nanny was once reprimanded by a woman in a New York City bathroom.
• Nanny once had pretty wicked road rage. Ironically, she's probably the source of others' road rage now.
• Nanny had a potty mouth.
• Nanny started going grey at 12. Hopefully she has accepted this reality of her body and has finally embraced her silver tresses.
• When Nanny was your age, an acceptable way to spend an evening with friends was to go dancing and drinking at a bar. Nanny hated this activity with the fire of a thousand suns, and would generally pass these evenings pretending to have a good time while silently judging her peers. The music was loud, the drinks were overpriced, the people were gross, and Nanny would rarely get through the evening without getting covered in someone else's beer. She desperately hopes that these evenings are never romanticized as The Good Old Days.
• Nanny never met a pizza, pasta, or turkey dinner she didn't like.
• Nanny spent way too much money on lipstick she never used.
• When Nanny was young, it cost her $10 to get into a movie and the better part of $70 to fill up her car. A fancy coffee could cost over $5. She refused to believe that these prices will ever been considered anything other than atrociously expensive.   
• Nanny spent the first half of her twenties feeling pretty lost and directionless. She'd love to commiserate with you over cookies and a cup of tea if you feel that way, too. She's pretty confident you're going to come out the other end of your apathy.

 (Nanny hopes she overcame this apathy, and isn’t currently living in a carboard box, as she long feared.)