I was 12 when I my father lost his father. I say it that way because I never really got to know him as a grandfather. Our first time “meeting” was at his funeral. I remember examining him as he lay in the casket on a hot summer day in Manning, South Carolina,1995. I imagine I was looking to see what of me I could see in him. He was slender, didn’t appear to have been very tall. Grayish hair. His face reminded me of my father’s, but not so much of mine at the time. I remember thinking, “Wow, that’s really him”, “my granddad”. James Silas Smith or “Birdie” as he was more affectionately known. I was sad; not because I felt it, but more so because I knew I was supposed to feel it.
All I knew of my grandfather was from the stories my dad told me. They had had a rocky relationship as my dad grew up. When he was younger, my dad once told me, he and Birdie had gotten into a fight, a fist fight at that, Birdie kicked him out of the house, told him to never come back. Things cooled of course and he moved back in. Birdie and my grandmother divorced when my dad was in his teens and my dad stayed with his mother and his sister. But he’d often visit Birdie, who was known to be a bit of a ladies man and his “wife of the moment”. My father grew especially fond of one of Birdies wives, “Nell” whom we would visit on the rare occasions we made it down to South Carolina. I called her grandma too because my dad still called her Mama. But not only was Birdie a ladies man, according to my dad, apparently he was bionic as well. You see, he had been in several car accident, one in which the car flipped over several (hundred according to my dad) times and he walked away without a scratch! Man, Birdie was something else.
So while I didn’t know Birdie personally, I carried around a mental picture of him in my wallet: Some suave Billy D Williams –meets- Superman type character, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and make ladies swoon with the wink of an eye. It didn’t really match up when I saw him in the casket, but I still imagined it to be true.
I remember my father taking it extremely hard when he got the news that Birdie had passed. He pulled me aside right before I left for school and told me my grandfather had died. I cried, in part because I felt like I was supposed to, but also because I was sad I had never gotten to meet Superman. My dad was a mess. He coped like he did for most things in his life; by drinking. I remember when I came home he was sitting in the relaxer chair in the den, staring off at the wall, singing, drinking, babbling about his dad, pretty incoherent. He was that way for most of the weekend. Usually my dad was an angry drunk, yelling, cursing, fighting, but not that weekend. He was drinking away the pain, of what I now know, was a man who simply missed his father…
…The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life thus far, was to tell my sons that their grandfather had passed. I had been crying all day, making arrangements with my mother, grieving with my wife. When I walked in, Noah almost immediately asked me what was wrong. I guess he could see it on my face. I pulled them both close, tears welling on my face, my wife moved in to support me and I told them that Bunny had gotten real sick and he had to go to the hospital and that he passed away while he was there. Kaleb’s head dropped into his lap, Noah started crying. I pulled them both in closer and told them that their grandfather loved them both very much and that we were all going to miss him. Even as I retell this story to myself, I can feel the emotion of the room. Bunny was their Birdie. I can remember how excited Noah was, telling me one afternoon that Bunny had taken him for a ride in his car to McDonald’s. And how excited they would get when Bunny and Me-Ma would take them to see the wrestling or to the state fair. They loved Bunny and Bunny certainly loved them.
After I told the boys about Bunny passing, I stumbled up the stairs into my bed and wept. A lifetime of memories, a heart full of sadness. The door opened and in came Noah. He didn’t speak. His shoulders bounced up and down as he stood in the door way. I couldn’t see his face in the darkness but I could hear his sniffles. He crawled into bed, laid his head on my chest and we cried ourselves to sleep. He too had lost his superman.
Nearly six months after my father passed away, I continue on the roller coaster of emotion. Some days I remember him fondly and smile, I give a “thumbs up” to the sky to let him know I’m okay. Other days I struggle to sleep, still remembering him fondly but missing him all the same. As I enter my season of manhood and maturity, I thank God for allowing me 27 years with a father for I know many who never had a day with one. And I am most thankful that unlike I, who never got to know mine, although their time together was short, my boys will forever have memories of their grandfather, Silas Levern “Bunny” Smith, my father, their superman.
