Written for the class "Public Relations Advanced Writing"
During my first year at Mount Saint Vincent University, my mother was chronically concerned that I would be homesick. On top of the dozens of care packages she sent throughout the year, she also had my relatives write me letters which would periodically pop up in my mail box. The first letter was from my grandfather – my Grampie.
It is written on a small sheet of note paper, no more than three inches by six inches. He had donated money to the Canadian Wildlife Federation and they had sent him the sheets as a gift. It was a god-ugly green color with a picture of a baby bob cat at the bottom. At the top, his name was typed “Mr. George W. Deviller” – to add that personal touch.
The note is short, simple and written in barely legible cursive. It is dated September 10, 2005. It reads:
Hi Jeffrey;
How are you doin’. I trust you’re settled into your new quarters by now and making loads of new friends. It’s exciting times all right. I trust the Mount is to your liking. Do I hear the girls outweigh the boys almost 8 to 1? I see! You guys don’t stand a chance. How I envy you.
I was in Halifax yesterday to see my doctor ‘Sergian’ about my operation 12 years ago. He gave me a good report which was comforting.
Take care of yourself, Jeff.
Love Grampa OXO
I had a black Dollarama frame empty in my desk and on a whim hung the note on the wall. As I moved six times, I kept the note and hung it wherever I called home.
It was just so… Grampie. His grasp of modern slang (‘How are you doin’) mashed with his outdated lingo (‘quarters’) captured my down-to-earth grandfather. The fact he was comforted, comforts me. His kind words at the end show the love that my grandfather had for his grandchildren. It was, however, the side note ‘How I envy you’ that struck me as both funny and strikingly genuine. It was my grandfather in a nut shell. He loved women. He was human, but his humanity made him all the more likeable.
Over the next two years, my Grampie’s and my Grammie’s health deteriorated both physically and mentally. Before long, my Grammie was put in a home, while Grampie stubbornly clung to his freedom. In 2007, my grandfather had a gout attack and was sent to the hospital. While there, my grandmother died in her bed. He passed away six months later.
Throughout his life, my Grampie wasn’t always the perfect man. However, throughout my life, he was the perfect grandfather. Nothing that I inherited from him so encapsulated the man I knew as well as this note. It hangs in my bedroom to this day.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Knick Knacks and Little Rats
Written for the class "Public Relations Advanced Writing"
I sit on a Queen-sized bed shoved in the corner of the bedroom I share with my girlfriend. The room is painted an awful asylum-white except for the yellow mold growing in the corner. Bleaching it is on the top of my ‘To Do’ list.
To combat the lackluster white, the walls are covered in an assortment of shelves filled with knick knacks collected over the past few years. The head of a wooden giraffe, I purchased as an anniversary present, hangs on a hook by our mirrored closet doors. I remember being concerned by the sheer quantity of mirrors that fill the apartment, but they have proven to be quite a convenience. These mirrors double the room’s size, while cutting down on the time my girlfriend and our roommate spend in the bathroom.
A varnished shelf holds a wooden block puzzle that will never be attempted, a row of portraits of each of my girlfriend’s cousins, and a large figurine of the Red Baron. The ornament was purchased for my sister by an ex and was plucked from the garbage to find its place on my shelf. I adore Snoopy. Above the shelf hangs a black rose, a symbol of my girlfriend’s dark sense of humor.
The walls are crammed full of our furniture and even now the room can be suffocating. Two bureaus, one brown and one white, take up most of the wall space. In one corner sits a rat cage large enough to fit a Labrador Retriever. Usually buzzing with the tell-tale sounds of our three rats nibbling on puffed wheat, the cage is ominously silent. It regularly gives off the faint smell of urine. Since the cage was cleaned recently, I sniff and relish in the pleasant lack of odor.
While sitting, I hear the muffled sound of my girlfriend in the bathroom across the hall. She is reassuring our three rats as she gives them their weekly bath. I imagine Sophie, an albino rat, is probably timidly sitting at the edge of the tub, while Ada, a gray-hooded rat, sticks her head playfully into the water with Daisy, a tan rat just reaching puberty, following her every step.
I sit on a Queen-sized bed shoved in the corner of the bedroom I share with my girlfriend. The room is painted an awful asylum-white except for the yellow mold growing in the corner. Bleaching it is on the top of my ‘To Do’ list.
To combat the lackluster white, the walls are covered in an assortment of shelves filled with knick knacks collected over the past few years. The head of a wooden giraffe, I purchased as an anniversary present, hangs on a hook by our mirrored closet doors. I remember being concerned by the sheer quantity of mirrors that fill the apartment, but they have proven to be quite a convenience. These mirrors double the room’s size, while cutting down on the time my girlfriend and our roommate spend in the bathroom.
A varnished shelf holds a wooden block puzzle that will never be attempted, a row of portraits of each of my girlfriend’s cousins, and a large figurine of the Red Baron. The ornament was purchased for my sister by an ex and was plucked from the garbage to find its place on my shelf. I adore Snoopy. Above the shelf hangs a black rose, a symbol of my girlfriend’s dark sense of humor.
The walls are crammed full of our furniture and even now the room can be suffocating. Two bureaus, one brown and one white, take up most of the wall space. In one corner sits a rat cage large enough to fit a Labrador Retriever. Usually buzzing with the tell-tale sounds of our three rats nibbling on puffed wheat, the cage is ominously silent. It regularly gives off the faint smell of urine. Since the cage was cleaned recently, I sniff and relish in the pleasant lack of odor.
While sitting, I hear the muffled sound of my girlfriend in the bathroom across the hall. She is reassuring our three rats as she gives them their weekly bath. I imagine Sophie, an albino rat, is probably timidly sitting at the edge of the tub, while Ada, a gray-hooded rat, sticks her head playfully into the water with Daisy, a tan rat just reaching puberty, following her every step.
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