On Grief and Vegetables

My grandfather and I had a complicated relationship. He was deaf, but wore a cochlear implant, which he would sometimes take out when he wanted quiet. This would enrage my mother, especially as he got older, because he would not hear his phone when she called to check on him. It also meant that he was loud, with a booming laugh, and enjoyed a good joke. One Christmas, he wrapped the Razor scooters for my brother and I in packing tape, then sat back with a laugh and watched as we fought to open them. He was always doling out life lessons, each sentence peppered with his signature “Okay?” — a gentle question to make sure you were following his train of thought. He was eccentric, often buying giant Costco-sized bulk versions of milk or bacon, even when he eventually lived alone. (He and my grandmother had raised six children, so I just always assumed that old habits die hard.)

After his wife, my Grandma Dot, passed away, I remembered my grandfather drinking. Scotch was his go-to, and he was never a mean or angry drunk — just drunk, often. Silly, loud, and down-for-a-good-time drunk. But, growing up with an alcoholic parent meant that even “fun” drunk was enough to put me on edge. I knew that after one more drink, or with one wrong comment, “fun” drunk could suddenly turn into a disaster, so I stayed hypervigilant — especially when he and Rosemary, the woman he remarried when I was 16, would travel down to take my family out to dinner on Monday nights.

I was too young to know that drinking and getting remarried were likely signs of his own grief after my grandmother passed. Instead, I resented him for both. In 2020, I skipped his 80th birthday (which was in early March, just before the pandemic, I told myself then.) In 2021, I skipped Rosemary’s funeral. (It was still the pandemic, I rationalized.) In 2025, I skipped his 85th birthday. I didn’t have an excuse for that one, except that my grandfather had not wished me a happy birthday in over 10 years— which I took as not only a personal offense, but one against my Grandma Dot. She and I share the same birthday.

I don’t think I realized how much resentment I had been holding until my dad handed me something of my grandfather’s they had found: A pink tie dye, “Purchase College 2010 Vagina Monologues” t-shirt. I laughed out loud — I am not sure why my parents, aunt, grandfather, and Rosemary decided to trek up to Purchase, NY to see me as “The Angry Vagina” — but they did. The same way they trekked to dance recitals and much tamer high school plays, like West Side Story and Beauty and the Beast. My aunt told me she had sat next to my father, who had his head in hands almost the whole time — totally uncomfortable and mortified.

I don’t remember much after that show — there were probably flowers, just like there would have been in high school. But at some point, my grandfather and Rose decided to buy a t-shirt — it was still my performance, their granddaughter’s, after all.