Heather T Stone

Today I found out my grandfather died, and I’m not upset in the slightest.

Today, I also took my 96-year-old Ukrainian grandfather-in-law fishing.

After hugging and kissing me, he raved to my husband about what a great wife and mother I am and how proud he is of me.

Holding my hand, he thanked me for the picnic and said he can’t wait to do it again next year.

I’m looking forward to that.

And apple picking in the fall.

Then, on the ride home, I saw a text from my dad saying his father died.

Respectfully, save your condolences. I don’t need them. I met the man once, at a funeral when I was a little girl.

A stranger introduced himself as my grandfather.

“No, you’re not,” I corrected him. “You’re Mr. Teets.”

I can’t tell you what his hugs felt like or what his voice sounded like.

He never called to say happy birthday.

I never got a holiday card.

What I did know was his story.

Grams was pregnant with my dad when he left her for another woman, moved across town, and started another family without looking back.

He named the firstborn son from each marriage after himself.

Two different women.

Two different Juniors.

I had no grandfathers until I met Dedushka.

When he’s gone, I will mourn him forever.

Until then, I’ll keep planning picnics.

I grew up knowing I had a grandfather who knew I existed.

I sent him a letter he never answered to let him know he could add “great” to his title.

He was the first man to teach me about abandonment and betrayal.

I grieved not having a grandfather back in elementary school, listening to other children talk about theirs and realizing something was very wrong with mine.

They say being written out of a will is the final way to say F you from beyond the grave.

I should know.

I’ve been written out of one.

But to be written out of an obituary?

Like we never existed.

The obituary mentions family members who predeceased him, but it doesn’t name my cousin. She was the youngest daughter of the first son he named after himself.

I know he knew she existed.

I kept thinking about his four other children waking up to learn their father had died, only to discover that his obituary erased them.

Again.

My father was going to read that.

My family was going to read that.

So allow me to rewrite the obituary for my grandfather, Mr. Teets.

He was predeceased by my grandmother, Dorothy Teets (Conklin), his first wife, who raised his first four children with no support from him in the early 1960s, when being divorced was practically a social death sentence.

She worked hard, put herself through school, and became a nurse at the VA.

She taught Sunday school and took in grandchildren who needed a safe place to live, myself included, always with a smile on her face and without ever saying a single curse word.

A saint.

Everything unconditional love was meant to be.

Mr. Teets left behind four children and nine grandchildren, all erased from his obituary.

One granddaughter predeceased him.

Her name was Rebecca Ellen Teets.

She was twelve when she passed from cystic fibrosis, a disease that requires inheriting a mutated gene from both parents.

Our inheritance came with grief we weren’t prepared for.

A name that carried no love.

No pride.

Just absence.

He also left behind more than twelve other great-grandchildren, some of whom are in heaven.

Some of those losses were mine.

I am his granddaughter.

I know he knew my name.

The bloodline continued.

My family continued.

Only the name disappeared.

May he know more peace in death than he gave us in life.

We will still exist.

Just like we always did.

Regardless.