Grampy
Oct 1st. My father’s father, “Grampy” Eugene (Gene) Frances Sheehan, would be 109 today.
He was born in Manchester, NH. The son of Nora Shea of Co. Cork Ireland, and Frances Sheehan of NYC (whose parents were from Co. Cork Ireland). My grandparents married late in comparison to the norm of the day. My father was born when my grampy was 30. I remember my dad saying his dad was 30 when he was born, and he was 30 when my brother was born.
Gene served in the US Marines. He worked as a manager at Sears and retired early to take care of my grandmother (Grammy) whose health was declining due to a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in her 40’s. He provided exceptional physical care to my grandmother, who spent her whole day in a wheelchair until I was in middle school, and then was bed bound until her death six months after my grandfather’s.
Grampy was kind, soft spoken, exceptionally patient and steadily resilient.
He didn’t talk much. He didn’t share stories of his childhood or of his past and I didn’t have the maturity to prompt him for them on my own. The only time I remember asking about his life was when I had a school project about WWII. He was genuinely interested in us, thoughtfully having our favorite foods on hand when he cared for us after school. He evenly divided the meatballs in the can of Spagettios, and cut the last one in half so my brother and I would have exactly the same amount. He took us on long walks and pushed us on the swings in the park where my grandmother had a direct view from her window.
My grandfather nearly died at 70, around the time my youngest sister, Caily was born. My father nearly died at 57, on my due date for my first child. That each of these men crawled their way back from death’s door to live many more years, determined to know their grandchildren, assures me of the power of the human spirit and the will to live. At some point, the angel of death comes for us all, but in those moments, these men refused that call, and each lived another 10 years, a shared experience of theirs that I am only now coming to reflect on.
In the summer of 2018, I did something I am sure my grampy never could have imagined.
I traveled to Ireland with the minimal information I had about his mother, Nora. Over the course of six days, I journeyed from Dublin to Cork, talking with people, asking questions, and sharing what I kept discovering. Each friendly and willing Irish person I met led me to the next person and place. I thought I might find a church or cemetery, and I never imagined I would actually meet a person, a relative who knew my grampy as a young man in Boston.
I am not sure what my face looks like when I am shocked, perplexed, and overcome with joy simultaneously, but it must have been quite the sight the moment I met my grampy’s cousin and godson, Danny. It was July 2nd, incidentally Danny’s birthday. When he learned I was Gene Sheehan’s granddaughter, he gave me a sweet smile, in which I could see decades-old memories make themselves manifest. I think he was as surprised to hear I knew nothing of him, as I was that there was a human sitting in front of me, with the same Celtic blue eyes as my grampy, of my flesh and blood, from this land across the sea, that to many Americans is the place of magic and mystery. It felt enormously magical that I had found this person, who after all, was not lost. But his story was lost, and part of Nora’s, and Grampy’s, and my dad’s, and mine, at least to me, until that moment. Danny, I began to realize, as the lightning speed thoughts and feelings were zipping up and down my still stunned body, was the last person on earth who knew my grandfather so young, before my grandmother. I had never met anyone with that memory. What a treasure, what a gift.
In the past six years, I have been back to visit Danny, and his wife Maureen five times. They live on the land where Nora Shea was born in 1875, in Beara, a remote and rugged peninsula in West Cork, on the southwest tip of Ireland, a thin finger of land jutting into the Wild Atlantic.
The bouldered landscape is home of the Cailleach (the old woman) of Beara, one of Ireland’s most ancient and legendary goddesses, credited with forming rocky hills and mountains throughout Ireland and Scotland. On this side of Beara black cliffs give way to the crashing sea and green hills are speckled with gray boulders, which legend says were placed by the Cailleach for stepping stones as she walked in the form of a giantess down the peninsula. Beara may be one of the wildest and most stunning places on the planet, and for most of my life I had no idea that it existed, or that it was where Nora Shea was born, where she lived, and what she left when she immigrated to Boston at the age of 25 in 1900. Last year, with a pinch of Grampy and my dad’s ashes, I brought my family to Beara. We walked the land, visited the Allihies Copper Mine Museum, and walked along the edge of the mine shafts where my gandfather’s family worked in the mid to late 1800’s. I told stories to my children and their cousins of what our ancestors did there, how they lived, and who they were - as much of it as I have learned to now. We listened to Danny and Maureen tell stories of their lives, their families lives, the history of our ancestors. Had I not found Beara, or Danny, the story of our family would have died with my grampy. But somehow, though he never told us of Danny when he was alive, we found his mother’s home and the stories. And now I know, and my children, and one day, their children will too.
Our story is the only thing of real value we can leave behind when we die. All the riches in the world won’t mend the hearts or nurture the souls of those we love and leave.
The favorite teacup, well used recliner, or collared shirt that still smells of Kool cigarettes and Old Spice may bring some comfort, but only because those things carry a story – in the way they look, feel, smell or in the memory that created their meaning. Our story only survives as long as there is someone to tell it or share it. At Samhain, an ancient Celtic and pagan festival on November 1st, family members place photos of ancestors on an altar, and leave gifts; a glass of whisky, favorite food, money, jewelry. The loved ones live on in memory, story, and the belief that when tended to in this world, exist and visit in the form of spirit from the other side of the veil.
I love October, because the first day begins with my Grampy’s birthday, and the last day is the eve of Samhain. It feels the whole month is a gradual thinning of the veil, a preparation to honor, recognize, remember and tell the stories of our dead. We have one photo of my grampy’s mother on our Samhain altar. She died in childbirth during the Spanish Flu in 1920. My grampy was four years old. I never knew her death was related to childbirth until I started uncovering stories while visiting Ireland - seems when I go there, the veil is always thin. I wonder how much of her story lives in me, and my life long work to care for infants and mothers.
I remember Grampy’s last birthday and the smoke from the 80 candles on his cake that he blew out!
I remember our trips to the park, the sound of the blinker in his car, grilled cheese sandwiches, and him standing in the threshold of the doorway to my grandmother’s room, just out of her sight, but never out of her service. I don’t know how he was as a father, but as a grampy, I don’t think there could be better. Happy heavenly birthday Grampy. And happy birthing day to my dear great-grandmother, Nora Shea. May they live eternally in our stories.