about Jim Scott

My 15 year-old slumped back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. He aimlessly fiddled with his iTouch perched on his stomach and avoided eye contact. He wanted the last few minutes of his life to have never existed, to go back in time before we gathered the family together that afternoon, before he got the news, before he knew his world was about to change. His older brother took it differently, perhaps because he was seated next to me, but more likely he wanted to gauge my reaction.  I could see his concern for me, or perhaps it might have been his realization that at some point in the future, he might be replaying this scene with his own children.

My wife and I had just told the boys that their grandfather, just a few weeks shy of 90, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had a short time to live.  They adored him for lots of reasons and I knew this loss, the last grandparent to leave, would not be taken easily. They loved his stories and laughed with him at his eccentricities. All the elements were there; he was a fellow-guy, retired Marine, three wars under his belt, and in his later years a real raconteur. They admired him to a fault and viewed his 3-war experience proudly.

He changed after my mother died and did all manner of interesting new things, including buying two bling-mobiles, big black sedans with chrome wheels, vibrating seats and low gas mileage. He discovered Internet shopping and the family enjoyed all sorts of varied gifts the UPS man regularly dropped on our porch. As a father and grandfather, he was always a generous soul, especially with his time.

This also means an end of one of our family’s newer rituals, the two or three dinners a week we shared with him. It was at those dinners over the past twenty months that he discarded the taciturn mien of my adolescence, instead delighting the boys with stories from his life interspersed with vitriolic rants about Bill O’Reilly, whom he particularly loathed but regularly watched. Always a man of routine, he arrived at 6 and invariably he would have a pie or some other goody in a plastic bag. His choice of  pie said a lot about him, they were always someone else’s favorite, not his. Then a little nightly news accompanied by a glass of red wine, dinner at 6:30, departure around eight after feeding Woody. In all of this, he managed to drink an entire pot of unsweetened black coffee during the course of the evening.  He loved to drop a few choice morsels under the table, feigning utter surprise that a hungry lab just happened to be lurking there.  He and the boys loved to trash Fox News, and when he was in office Mr. Bush as well, and generally did so with great gusto. We all enjoyed great conversation and story-telling, ranging from daily life on Guadalcanal to American History.

When school starts and old routines return, our weekday evening meals will surely be different. But I plan to keep them lively and connected to our shared past. Every now and then I will be sure to re-tell a Grandpa Bill story or two, and maybe drop a piece of food on the floor. I know Woody would like that.