Legacy

            Transformers. I remember Transformers, not the Mark Wahlberg or Shia Labeouf Transformers but the original cartoon from the 1980s. I was watching Transformers on a Sunday morning when my Dad called me upstairs after the phone call. I lived with my parents for another twenty years, and I think this was the only Sunday morning I can recall my Dad being home. I sat at the end of the bed when he told me that my Grandfather, his father would not be coming back from Mexico. My older brother and sister must have been in the room when my dad informed us, but I cannot picture them in the room. Maybe the seriousness of the moment created a tunnel vision in my 5-year world. A protective instinct to shield myself from the very real world that had invaded the cartoon fantasy that I was in just moments ago. My grandfather had smoked for over fifty-five years, and the experimental surgery in Mexico was his last hope. And that is where he passed away in resort town along the Pacific Ocean, a world away hard inner-city street he grew up on. 

            I was my grandfather’s youngest grandchild, and my memories of him are faint and hazy. Any vibrancy of color that is brought to his memory had to be borrowed from my older siblings or cousins. But even their additions do not add any of the hues of your typical grandfather. In my memory, he always appears remote and off-color, like a faded picture or in black and white. His monochromatic somber intensity could not be more different from my mother’s parents. My mother’s family is made of two immigrant families from southern Italy. Both lived into their 90’s and had an energy and enjoyment for life until there final years. When I met them, they were already living the last enjoyable chapters of their American Dream. Born in the poor regions of Southern Italy, their families embraced the opportunities of America and survived the hardships of the Depression to proudly fight and serve their adopted country in World War II. When my grandfather returned from the war, he married Antoinette. The hard work that carried them through the ’30s and ’40s propelled them for the rest of their lives. They retired early from there Italian Restaurant and could afford to spend their summers in Florida. Only to return to Pittsburgh for the summers to manage their impressive garden.  The combination of the Florida sun and the humidity of Pittsburgh gave my grandparents the beautiful color of the Mediterranean all year long. Their skin and smiles gave off a warmth that seemed to perfectly match their disposition. The brightness of color of my Italian heritage is only magnified when compared to the hardness of my Dad’s father.

            A few years ago, my wife and I took a DNA test, which held little to no surprises for me. Outside the actual DNA test, the website provided access to the government records that I hoped would help me trace my family back to early America. By this time in my life, I had gathered more than a few family tales that were tied to my dad’s father, who had died in Mexico, Walter Miller. These stories were a collection of hardships that seemed too awful to be true. It was not that I doubted the sources of these stores, who were my dad and uncle; it was that I could not fully comprehend them. The anecdotes sounded more Dickensian then anything. Witnessing his first murder before his thirteenth birthday, or never having three meals a day until he joined the Army. The darkness of these accounts would cause Oliver Twist to whence. The genesis of these stories was the claim that my great grandmother Walter’s mother died during the Influenza epidemic of 1919. To deal with the pain of this loss, my great grandfather numbed the pain with alcohol. Tragically the numbing worked so well that he failed to notice losing his job and eventually losing his family.

            The site that we joined only had access to the records of the US government, so the length of our search was limited in duration. With quick success with our Italian heritage, we turned our eyes to Walter Miller. What I found of my grandfather’s life was the tragic confirmation of the legends that had been passed on. My great grandmother did pass away during the period of the Spanish Influenza, and soon after, the household was divided up. When the family was divided up, Walter was in the extremely vulnerable position of being too young to work and too young to be considered a baby. Documents and census reports showed a drastic contrast between my two families. The newly arrived Italian immigrants moved from one expanding home to another. The families were thriving in the fertile soil of America, while the Miller tree that had been planted years before was dying at the root. Walter never left the same street but moved from one apartment to the next. Additionally, the documents showed a revolving door of family and strangers that he was passed between. It appeared he never stayed with one family for more than a few months at time.

            The further I investigated my grandfather’s life, the more I was humbled by the life that I have, that he helped to create. And sadden for the young boy who lost his mother, and family. My search became less about the vain self-congratulatory connection between my family and America, but rather a search to a greater understanding of a grandfather I never really knew. I will never fully know my grandfather. Nor will I be able to understand the pain that comes with the hardships that he carried with him every day, but I have been able to add some color to my memories of him.