Ode To PaPaw

originally published December 26, 2007

Until very recently, I had lived the privileged life of someone who had never lost anyone close to them. I’ve said goodbye to distant aunts, uncles and great-grandparents, of course, and often wondered when this lucky streak would end as I’ve watched friends and family lose parents, brothers, sisters, and even children. I’ve walked around with the kind of dark cloud that only the truly pessimistic can muster, and with held breath asked the gods, “When?” and “Who?”

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The day before my 31st birthday, my sister, my husband, Justice and I were going to start the celebrating early in true Deroshia fashion with a Mexican dinner and a pitcher of margaritas. As soon as we got our table, Justice announced he had to pee (he urinates with the frequency of a pregnant woman), so I got up to take him to the bathroom for the fifth time that afternoon.

When we got back to the table my sister was crying and she and Jeff were both standing up. “We have to go,” she said through tears. She put away her phone. I followed her as she ran out of the restaurant. Jumping in my car, I followed her to my house thinking, “These are the last two minutes things will be okay.” I knew Jeff, Justice and Jenny were with me, and losing any one of them would be the end of me, so I tried to tell myself that whatever else, or whoever else it was, I could handle it. There’s a song based on the “Wear Sunscreen” column by Mary Schmich that says all the things you worry about are meaningless and the thing that will really get you is the unexpected phone call you get on a Tuesday afternoon. Well, I concur, except it was a Wednesday.

When I ran in the house, Jenny was in the middle of the living room floor, cellphone in hand. “What happened?” I braced myself. “PaPaw’s dead,” she gasped. Whoever said “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” had never heard those words. I felt with the speaking of those three syllables that my insides had been ripped out of my body, particularly my heart. I was hysterical. Completely unexpected and out of the blue, a massive heart attack had taken him away from us in a matter of minutes.

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Our PaPaw was, without exaggeration, the greatest man on Earth. He took on the job, with my MeMaw, of raising my sister and me as surrogate parents. He made sure we had everything we ever needed, and lots of stuff we wanted. He was our rock. I named my son after him, and the love I felt for that man was the most unconditional love I’ve ever experienced with the exception of my love for Justice.

My PaPaw was a conservationist. Born and raised in Gwinnett County, GA, his life started in a house his daddy had built on land owned by his daddy. Fittingly, he died on the same land, in the house his dad helped him build for his own family. He watched over the years as one after another, all the people around him sold their land to developers. He watched as the land he once farmed was bulldozed to make room for yardless houses, and the barn his kids once played in was torn down.

PaPaw held onto his land, watching from his yard the “progress” that was happening all around him. Once, a developer came by to ask if PaPaw would sign a waiver for the sewage system the subdivision across the street would need. They wanted to go about 10 feet onto my Papaw’s land. He kindly said no thank you. “But what about the residents?” the man tried to persuade him. “They can shit in your pocket for all I care,” he replied. He had a way with words.

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To say I got my sense of humor from him would be a vain statement, because he found a way to laugh at almost everything, and to make everyone around him laugh, too. He had a nickname for everyone, calling my sister “Runt,” as she was the smallest among us. He had been known to roll up to the drive-through at KFC and request a bucket of chicken, “hold the necks and asses.” I can say that I got a good chunk of his humor, and that I have in turn passed it on to my son. I hope that his children will one day think of me and say their humor must have come from grandma. “She was a crazy old bat, but funny as hell,” they’ll lament. Passing it on is the only way to cheat mortality.

PaPaw was a generous man with plenty of money. If anyone ever needed financial assistance, they knew they could stroll right up to the “Bank of PaPaw” and get a no-interest loan. The loans had great terms because they did not require repayment. He was always happy to help his family, but he was still a frugal fellow. He did not believe in unnecessary spending. One of my first memories of him was seeing him pull his own teeth as we sat on the swing together in his yard. He held up a slightly yellowed and bloodied incisor and said, “That’s 30 dollars,” with a toothless grin. He didn’t believe he should pay a dental fee for a job he could clearly do himself. After he got all the teeth out of his head, he was fitted for a lovely set of dentures, but if he could have fashioned a pair at home, he surely would have.

PaPaw was a rebel of sorts, with a strong opinion about compulsory education. His elementary schoolhouse was heated by a single wood stove. Because he was one of the older, stronger boys, his teacher would ask him and another boy to go out in the early morning frost and gather firewood. He and his pal would grab their axes and head out into the cold. To punish the establishment for this injustice, they would sneak under the building’s crawl space and chop away at the two-by-fours that held the school up. When they got back to the classroom, they would throw the battered pieces into the stove. They were literally burning down the school. It was “Fight the Power,” only way back when.

My PaPaw had stories. He worked in law enforcement for 30 years. You would think that would have hardened him beyond repair, but he remained tender-hearted. He recounted through tears a tale of his early days on the Lawrenceville police force when he was ordered to take a woman for a “sterilization.” She was known as “Doll Baby,” and she lived in public housing. She had 11 children she was unable to take care of, children that had been cast off one-by-one for the city to raise. In 1957, the spirit of the law and the letter of the law were very different things, especially in the segregated South. PaPaw followed his orders and took Doll Baby to the hospital. She was kicking and screaming the whole way. He wasn’t sure if what they had done was legal or not. Shortly after that, he left the police force and went to work in a state prison. There it would be clear who the criminals were.

One of PaPaw’s responsibilities there was to escort inmates to doctor’s appointments. He sat and listened as the doctor diagnosed a 19-year-old Athens native with terminal cancer. The kid didn’t have long. My PaPaw pulled some strings and was able to take the inmate to an Athens hospital, where he could die surrounded by family, instead of back to prison where he would have died alone and anonymously. The boy’s mother never stopped thanking PaPaw. They had been able to spend his last two weeks with him.

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PaPaw had so many stories. People who really live their lives always have stories. He had farm stories, family stories, prison stories, travel stories, funny stories, wildly inappropriate stories, and even a few historical tales. His memory was full of things that illuminated the details of my heritage, and of things that spoke of a past lived in the South that I would never know first-hand. I told myself every day that I needed to get a tape recorder, lots of blank tapes, and just go record PaPaw’s stories. How I wish I would have done that.

The holidays this year are going to be difficult without PaPaw. He was the life of the party everywhere he went. I look at my little boy and try to see that PaPaw’s life goes on even though he isn’t with us in body anymore. I know he wouldn’t want me to be miserable, he would want me to live my life fully, just like he did. I think of him putting me on the back of his motorcycle when I was even smaller than Justice. He would make sure my helmet was on good, tight as it would go. “Ready ‘Lizbeth?” he’d shout back to me over the roar of the engine. “I’m ready, PaPaw!” I would shout. “Let’s go!”

Elizabeth Deroshia