He began his entry into my life on Valentine’s Day in 1979, when he was an MP at Camp Pendleton, and met my mom that evening in a bar. They hit it off pretty good, and a week or two later when my mom went to visit friends, he knocked on their door and the friend introduced them, and the smiles on their faces as they said they have already met were enough to suggest to me that there was something already there. They both knew they had met their mates. I don’t think there was any other path forward for them from that point. Hell, I was seven, and I knew it. They were married by April. This was a guy who came in just about on his mom’s birthday in 1957 and was lucky to have made it due to his mom’s bout with German Measles while he was gestating. I always figured he was lucky there because he only appeared to have been born deaf in one ear, where a schoolteacher I had once in high school was born under the same circumstances and had no hands and feet. Of course, nobody knew about a defect in his heart in those days.
All his life, or for at least the time I knew him, he was one of those guys who was good at everything he did. I have played him thousands of games of Chess, and only ever beat him five times. I have watched him shoot, swim, play ball, and it seemed like he had the Midas Touch at everything he did. One time as we drove through Las Vegas on vacation things had cost my parents more than expected, and they down to their last twenty bucks, so he took it to the casino in the hotel we had checked into, and won enough we were able to carry on with the trip at a comfortable pace. It was always punishing to play him at anything. He could pick up something new in a moment, and play it like he had been doing it all his life.
At the same time as he was brilliant, his handicap was that he was difficult. to communicate with. My grandfather once confided in me that he thought Graig was stupid. I knew better. He was not stupid and was willing to give a go at any task, and usually succeeded at whatever it was. What was hard was that he did not know how to communicate his thoughts well to others. It was like he thought something, and it came out of his mouth as half a thought, and then he did not understand why the person he was speaking to did not understand, and he became impatient with them. But damn straight he would still accomplish whatever it was he was set out to do, proving that yes, he was intelligent.
Graig was good as a stepdad. He was a good provider for his family. Christmases were always full and surprising. The cupboards were never bare growing up. He gave freely of his time and helped out whenever asked to with the financial matters. Though he seemed to like coming off as calloused, and hard, he tried to send me recordings of all the family videos from our growing up, and when they did not work, he found a different way and tried again. Sadly, I never was able to get the recordings to play on my computer. There are a few clips I got, and I cherish them deeply: even more today than ever.
Thanks Graig, for a good childhood, full of fun and adventure that I have never been able to replicate. Your greatness was not in a shiny veneer, but down in the core. I am so sad that you are gone. I’ve always had you figured to be too damn stubborn to ever die. Really.