Zoe Pazner

I sat my father down in the kitchen so I could interview him about his father. His father had died 5 years prior and though the wounds had healed you could still see the scars and the pain behind my father’s eyes. I asked him the question: what was the best thing your father has ever done for you? With the other questions he took time to think about it, shuffling through his memories, but with this question he took no time at all. He answered, “He was present and made sure I knew it.” My grandfather grew up in Philadelphia with his mom, Mary, and his father, Saul. Saul was never a good father, he was always jealous of my grandfather for his accomplishments and his life. My grandfather didn’t want to be like this, he wanted to be there for his kids, he wanted his children to love him, they did. My grandfather was a family therapist. He helped people process and deal with emotions. How to shuffle through them and help people find the light in the darkest of times. He had to transform himself for his patients, he dug through their lives as if they were filing cabinets to find the best and the happiest of times to remind each of them how much they truly had. He used his own pain and his own trauma to feel empathy and made each of his patients feel special and treasured. If you dug past his pessimistic and stubborn outside you found the good and the incredible within him. The first time my mother ever met my grandfather was on a sunny Monday in New York. Her and my father waited by the curb for him to come. My father looked over my mother’s shoulder and chuckled. He pointed behind her and when she turned around my grandfather was standing there in full bike gear. A bright red bike helmet, knee pads, shoulder pads, and elbow pads. The whole family still laughs at the first impression he made on my mother. One thing I still admire about my grandfather is his freeness. His ability to be himself, to express who he was without embarrassment. To love himself no matter what. His ability to not care.

My grandfather wore a ring on his left hand. Him and my grandmother had gotten it in Jamaica many years ago. On it was a red cardinal with multi-colored triangle designs surrounding it. On the inside of the ring, carved in tiny letters, was the logo of the makers but it is too far back in my memory for me to remember what it said. I was five when he gave me that ring. My small bony fingers allowed the ring to easily slip off, so my dad took the ring away until I was old enough to wear it. Me and my best friend got a friendship necklace and next to the half of a heart that came with the chain I added my grandfather’s ring. Once I went on a flight to go see my grandmother at Stanford as she was doing a senior course. When I returned home after a weekend of bathing myself in the California sun I dug around in my backpack to find that my grandfather’s ring was nowhere to be found. I felt as if there was a huge hole in my stomach, as if I had somehow lost more of him. I was seven when my grandfather died. I knew death happened but I didn’t understand it. I remember going upstairs, where my grandparents lived, and sitting next to babas bed. My dad and my mom stood by my side as I held my stuffed bunny close to my heart, as if to protect it. I knew he had been sick for a while because his heart didn’t pump enough blood which was why his feet were always purple. That night my grandmother’s dog woke her up in the middle of the night and led her to my grandfather’s side. She watched him take his final three breaths and his soul swim away with a smile. My story reflects on the wider world around me by talking about loss. Us as humans have all experienced loss. We have all experienced sadness. We have all experienced pain either mentally or physically. We have all lost someone close to us and gained someone who changed our lives for the better. This is simply how life works, we are knocked down over and over but find the will and the strength to stand again only now to find that we are stronger than before.