Grandad scenario

Scenario of being with Donkey having an extremely rare (by that time in our lives, exceptionally rare) opportunity for us to chat as friends and as grandads. One of his grandkids comes along to ask him to pay attention to some passing minutiae of childhood excitement and he chides them away, fairly, so that we might continue our conversation. These opportunities come along rarely enough now, and we’re old enough now, that it is feasible that this is the last time in our times on this earth that we get to have such a conversation. And the conversation has both trajectory and legs. We’re both excited to get into it. However, the conversation I had on the crumbled wall of the past Fazendinha on the Rua da Boa Vista with my sister came back to me, where we shared very different views of Avô Eduardo.

I say to Donkey:

“I love you, and I want to have this conversation with you more than you could possibly imagine. However, decades after you die, that girl/boy is going to have a conversation while sat on a crumbling wall with someone here about their memory of Grandpa D. That enduring memory, that lasting impression, will either be influenced by how you were with them in the last two minutes — ‘He was alright, a bit of a grumpy grandad, always sending me away’ — or by what you do with them in the next two minutes — ‘He was great, was Grandpa D, always loads of energy and humour, and he met me on my level, you know? Always meant the world to me, that’.

“So, while I love you and desperately want to have this conversation with you… Off you go, Donkey.”

(28.10.21)