On being sentimental

Here in our post and beam 1980's house I use my grandfather Emanuel Miller's dresser for my clothes. Everybody called him Manny.  He was my mother's father. His wife Sarah died young of diabetes related conditions, before my parents were married.

I'm pretty sentimental about that piece of furniture.   Graddaddy lived with us until he died at about 76 when I was 14.  The dresser is stylistically jarring in this setting, doesn't close completely, and the drawers resist easy opening.  It's marred by burns from Granddaddy's cigarettes.   It's wood, but covered with patterned veneer in colors meant to suggest chestnut and mahogany.    It's kind of square and clunky with decorative touches that don't hide its clumsiness.    It probably wasn't a great dresser when it was new.  The one neat thing about the dresser is the skinny little drawer on top that I use to hold things like cuff links.

I tolerate and enjoy the dresser because each day as I struggle with its drawers, I remember my grandfather.   He loved to sing in Yiddish and English.   He was a gentle soul, though apparently he was once a bouncer in a bar and known as a lady's man.  He was grateful that my parents housed him with us and helped out whenever he could.   I never washed a dish until he died, though he drove us all crazy by bustling the dishes from the table before we were really finished.

I don't think he got along well with my father.   My father thought he was kind of simple.   (My dad came from a long line of scholars and rabbi's who could spend days analyzing a sentence from the Torah.)   My grandfather like to bounce me on his knee and sing.  From my point of view, they made it work.

On the dresser sat his bottle of whiskey....one shot each evening..."for my health."  When he got old and showed some signs of dimentia, it became my job to cut his toenails.   I really really hated that.  But I also remembered that Granddaddy was my babysitter and child care person when my parents were both working.   Lucky me.

I'm glad that the dresser impedes my progress each day in a way that makes me think about Granddaddy.  The up side of sentimental is that it helps me remember.   I like that.