Dear Gramps.

listening to: the messiah will come again - roy buchanan.
reading: a text from vaile.
watching: pablo the little red fox; season 1; episode 8 - bathtime.
eating: chocolate.
drinking: water.


hey there granddad,
this is my letter of confession, recognition and not-very-insightful commentary to you.

when you passed, all my dad was able to give me was your shaving brush.
he said it wouldn't come of much use to me.
that was around the time when i desperately wanted to grow a moustache.
but don't worry, i used it on my legs once for kicks.

late at night i recall you sneaking downstairs to drink the pickle juice out of the olive jar.
but finding my spindly, awkward four year old body already kneeling on the counter sipping it up with mum's "dawn of the eagle" teaspoon.
you would sit in your red leather chair, and talk to me about the isle of the dogs, where you grew up as a boy, telling me the tales of you;
the extortionist, the gambler, the drinker, the lover, the leaver, the miner, the sailor, the waiter.
and even though all of these things added up to a completely imperfect specimen...
i thought you were god.

your speckled black and white hair, your dusty old off-red boxing gloves, your sideways smile and the way you seemed to know everything i was thinking, even when i gave no hint at all.
the way everybody treated you, in retrospect, seems largely unfair. and i'm sorry to say at that particular moment in time i was too naive to do anything about it.

the day when i came home, after a brief (disheartening) encounter with the irish kind in dymocks, i saw your picture on my mantelpiece, and sat there holding you, humming your favourite wishbone ash song, and watching my toes curl up on the carpet.

you're a smoker, you're a joker and you're a midnight toker.
even when you were completely offchops, you made me smile harder than anybody else could.
i'm sorry that you aren't here anymore, and it hurts me that i didn't get to send you off with all these thoughts and that painting i did that you really liked.

you've left the biggest imprint on the smallest girl.
you may have left me, but those tiny shards of those tiny memories that we had together assemble themselves to create an unfinished masterpiece.

and that's the way i would have wanted-needed-loved-done it.