So, long post incoming, but it's been a rough day. But I'm hoping it is a good reason we'll win tomorrow.
So I got a call that I've been dreading since July. My grandfather, the man who raised me as his own, had passed out according to my grandmother, and the ambulance was on the way to their home. He's had lung and heart problems for damn near twenty years now, and he's pushing 80.
He was diagnosed with cancer this year, a disease which has killed the majority of his ten brothers and sisters much younger than he. He has outlived every one of them so far, but after an episode in July where he went black and was brought back with a breathing apparatus, he's been frail. This was not something he wanted, he wanted to go quickly, and not suffer a life where he can't walk unassisted or do the things he loved doing.
He just wanted to go, and so today, when I got to my grandmother's and saw the paramedics, I knew he wouldn't be suffering any longer. He had a DNR order, and just looking at the scene when I arrived I knew what was transpiring. Still, you hold out some selfish hope on the way to the hospital, that the man who has been your father you never had as you are the son he never had, that he'd pull through it. He'd beaten strokes, open heart surgery, lung surgeries, knee replacements. He had always come out of it, to our grateful surprise. I was still hoping, selfishly, denying what I saw with my own eyes. We were ushered into the dreaded isolation room where we knew what was happening, but we couldn't accept it until the doc came in and broke the news. He said, "You all know what was happening." We all nodded and listened until he got to the news, our patriarch had passed.
I've had a rough day, he was my father I never had, as I was the son he never had. We loved football and beer, family and children. I am constantly referred to as mini-Chuck in the family, because I physically look so much like him. And I've imitated him for as long as I can remember. I gave him the Chuck nickname when I was a smart-ass 13 year old. No one would get away with saying that to him, except me I was constantly told. We had a bond that I can't even describe, and it started with Notre Dame football.
Our household in PA was majorly female. My uncles were not around as much as my mother and four aunts when I was growing up. The way it went, I learned after a few years, was that the women would sit in the kitchen and watch Penn St. while my grandfather would retire to the living room and relax in his recliner to watch the Irish. Most of my memories of early childhood revolve around my grandmother's house on weekends, and the football games I watched. I stayed with the women as any little man would, so I cheered for Penn St. That was, until I was a little older, and I realized that I was a man damn it, and I belonged in the other room with the man of the house, watching the Irish on Saturday. And that is how my foolish youthful self woke from a female induced Penn St. fandom into my Irish home. I was no more than ten when I made that realization, and it led to some of the best memories of my life.
I could recite a million memories of watching the Irish on Saturday in that living room, reveling in being a man with the idol of my life. He taught me how to throw and catch, so I went out for football to make him proud. It turned out I was good enough for him to go and brag about me at the bar, to the other members of the Minooka Notre Dame Club. I made him proud my grandmother told me, and it made me happy to know he thought of me so highly. He'd always go to South Bend once a year, and he'd always bring me back a football or a hat with a wool ball on the top that said Irish. I still have those hats, and I have his Notre Dame Club jacket too. I would never stop hounding him to let me come to South Bend one time. They drank a lot, see, on the ten hour bus ride to South Bend. I didn't understand when I was younger, but I do now, it just wasn't a place for a barely teen boy.
I never relented and begged him every year. "When you're sixteen" he said, thinking I'd grow out of it. So when I was sixteen I asked again and was refused. So my grandmother stepped in and laid her foot down. When I turned 18, he would take me to South Bend, or face her wrath. He agreed and we still watched the Irish every Saturday in that living room.
It finally happened, I got to go to South Bend as an 18 year old with the Minooka Notre Dame Club. What happens on the trip stays on the trip, but I got obnoxiously drunk on the ride out there, and we woke up at six to get to the stadium to tailgate. We parked the bus a few hundred meters from the stadium. I got to serve booze to passers-by for donations, a job I relished, because it allowed me to talk football with some knowledgeable folks along with my grandfather and revel in my experience. I was serving booze to in the shadow of the stadium! Getting drunk and prepping for my long awaited day.
It turns out they had a lot of friends out there. There were people who would pop by and remember them from years past, and I heard some wild stories.
When I was good and liquored up, we headed for the Trumpets under the Dome, the bookstore, and everything else we could experience before kickoff. I got to see it all, and I even got overpriced apparel from the bookstore, all on Chuck's dime, a man who worked construction his whole life and never went to high school. He did not have a lot of money, but he freely spent what he had to make my experience memorable.
After eating some steak sandwiches, we went ahead and got some tickets from a scalper. It was my drunken job to find this man until my grandfather realized I was in no state and did the work for me. We entered the stadium to watch the Irish take on the Trojans.
The game was a blowout. USC destroyed Ty's Irish but the whole experience was still one of the most memorable of my life. I got to scream at the kickoffs, cheer for the Irish, and share it in the flesh with a man I'd been watching football with for years.
After the game he apologized that we got blown out, and the ND club went on to the Kitty Kat for some gentleman's fun, after some dinner. Being hammered in a strip club with my grandfather was great. (I don't care if any of you think it's inappropriate.) I had a great time as an 18 year old with men in their 50s and 60s at a titty bar. It was fucking hysterical and I still remember the lap dance I got with my grandfather's money.
We left South Bend the next day for the long ten hour ride home. I had a great time and I'll cherish the memories forever. I wanted to take him out to another game when I was old enough, as we never got a chance to get there again. We went to some east coast games, seeing the Irish beat Navy and some others. But we never got back out to South Bend like I wanted. His failing health and my own divorce and finances complicated the chance. In the end even if I could afford it all, he couldn't make the trip.
So as we watched the Irish this season I took in the experience. I remember him yelling at the TV, giving me points about the defensive scheme. No matter how old I got we would still break down the team together. It wasn't perfect, but nothing ever is. It's one thing I've learned in my thirty years on this earth. But it was ours, God damn it, and I'll cherish those memories for the rest of my life.
Today has been hard on my whole family. We spent the night at my grandmother's and I just got home. I couldn't stop thinking about the game tomorrow, and how I need to put on his jacket and sit in his recliner, watching the Irish take on GT. I have been a bit of a pessimist lately, but I think if Chuck can do anything, he'll want the Irish to win. I know Jesus doesn't care about the score, but if he can do it, Chuck will try to get a word in with his Mother, I hear she's a huge fan.
This isn't supposed to be some deep post. I'm very much like my grandfather, I don't get things out talking to everyone. These are just some words I wanted to get out. I know his death has no impact on the outcome of the game. I'm just grasping for something while I'm at a low point. So I'll be cheering hard tomorrow, in Irish gear and on a recliner, while my family gazes at me from the kitchen, saying goodbye in my own way.