yet another dream post
Jun. 15th, 2013 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roozleLast night, for the first time in a long time, I dreamed about my grandfather. Not as he actually was when he died, bed-ridden and lost in dementia, but an idealized version of his old age, frail and shaky but still funny and sharp and kind. I dreamed that it was the morning after a visit with him in which we played cards and joked around, and I'd gotten the news he had died. In the dream, my mother and aunt were talking about how he had left no will but I said to them, "well, I know what he would want to do."
Leaving aside how unlikely it is that we can actually know another's unspoken wishes -- dreams, after all -- there's something in my head this morning about how shared temperament and affinities can run in families. I see a lot of him in my mother, a lot of my mother in myself, time will tell how much of those traits are passed even further down the generations. In the interplay of genetics and environment, some things seem uncanny in their repetition.
Today I am remembering what were perhaps not my grandfather's best features. He wasn't much for accumulating wealth at his best; as I understand it, money flowed out of his fingers as fast as he came in. He was forgiving to a fault -- until one crossed the invisible line after which that person was dead to him. I think he was often restless, certainly pig-headedly stubborn, capable of turning his kindliness to a flash of temper at times. I don't want to idolize him. I'm a little more discerning than the child who thought he was the smartest man in the world and should be elected president, which gives you some idea of my childhood hero-worship of Grandpa. Still I miss him, as long as its been, and that's ok with me. As long as we remember, they live on.
Leaving aside how unlikely it is that we can actually know another's unspoken wishes -- dreams, after all -- there's something in my head this morning about how shared temperament and affinities can run in families. I see a lot of him in my mother, a lot of my mother in myself, time will tell how much of those traits are passed even further down the generations. In the interplay of genetics and environment, some things seem uncanny in their repetition.
Today I am remembering what were perhaps not my grandfather's best features. He wasn't much for accumulating wealth at his best; as I understand it, money flowed out of his fingers as fast as he came in. He was forgiving to a fault -- until one crossed the invisible line after which that person was dead to him. I think he was often restless, certainly pig-headedly stubborn, capable of turning his kindliness to a flash of temper at times. I don't want to idolize him. I'm a little more discerning than the child who thought he was the smartest man in the world and should be elected president, which gives you some idea of my childhood hero-worship of Grandpa. Still I miss him, as long as its been, and that's ok with me. As long as we remember, they live on.
