I sat across the room from my grandfather, my mom’s dad. Mom had only been gone a few years, and now that I had my own car I could visit her parents whenever I wanted.
Grandpa Joe served in the Navy aboard the USS Caravan minesweeper. Grandpa picked up smoking and drinking in the Navy, and there were times when he did swear like a sailor. I already knew which words were off-limits and never would have tried any of those words my grandpa said out on my friends.
Even after Grandpa Joe stopped smoking (inside anyway), the smell always lingered, but the smell never bothered me. After he passed, I could still detect the smell in the old furniture, but it was, to me, a beautiful reminder of the relationship I had with him.
After his service in the Navy, Grandpa Joe worked tirelessly for his family. When I was young and my mom was sick, it was Grandpa Joe’s hard work that often provided a little extra for our family. As a kid I never knew that, and my grandparents on both sides were never looking for credit or praise for what they did.
They were really the best kind of grandparents a kid could ask for. They’re all gone now, and today I miss them more than usual.
Back to Grandpa Joe’s living room. He’d just pulled out a book of neatly scribed logarithm tables that he’d created with nothing more than his keen mind and a slide rule.
His job at EIMCO Steel was to make sure the computer was doing its calculations correctly so he’d painstakingly created that book of logarithms to help him do just that.
Today, most of us don’t question a computer’s output, but his job was to ensure the room-sized mainframe computer was calculating things correctly.
I was studying Mechanical Engineering at the time, and he told me frequently that I always needed to know what the computer was doing to make sure it was accurate. He was an unwitting pioneer of the idea “garbage in, garbage out.”
People who lived their lives before technology was ubiquitous were better at being present. It was certainly a character trait all my grandparents had. When I talked to any of them, what I had to say was all that mattered in the moment, regardless of the subject matter.
That’s a gift every loving grandparent has: the ability to be absorbed by the lives of their grandchildren.
Looking back with perhaps a bit more mileage in my own life, it’s easier for me to see that the lessons weren’t about computers or calculations. They were about paying attention to details, to people, and to that moment. Grandpa Joe’s life, like my other grandparents, was and is an example of being present. When I was with them, they listened. I remember my dad’s dad, Grandpa Tom, asking me lots of questions about school even though I know the later years of my education were way over his head. That didn’t stop him from taking a keen interest in what was interesting to me.
That kind of personal focus seems rare now. Our days are pulled in so many different directions — notifications, obligations, scrolling, distractions — that we forget to stop and ask ourselves: what really deserves our attention? It’s not easy to pause long enough to answer that question let alone refocus our efforts on what matters most. So often, we’re caught in a tide that requires tremendous determination to escape.
As I’ve gotten older, those moments from years long ago have become increasingly important to me. I’ve started looking back and seeing the lessons they were teaching perhaps without even trying. Unintentional lessons often come from people who are just doing their best to help others navigate the frenzied pace of life today.
If now’s all we really have, what will we do with it? Do we continue to rush through life, always looking forward to the next thing, or will we slow down, pay attention, and make it count?
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