Editor’s note: During production of this week’s edition of the Oneida Press, I found out that my grandfather Calvin Janes, a lifelong resident of Durhamville had passed away.
I don’t know how old I was, but too young to climb the ladder to the hayloft by myself. It’s one of the memories that’s only a few seconds long, but clear for that moment. It’s like a photograph- I’m not sure the context of the event but I remember the image.
My grandfather and I were wearing matching blue flannel shirts. He had his rubber boots and I had mine- they were red and when I stepped in mud they made a smiley face where my foot had been.
We walked through the barn past the cows and he bent down in front of the ladder to the hayloft. I stood behind him and put my arms around his neck and he carried me piggy-back up into the loft, the most exciting place in the barn. He placed me on the floor of the loft and I stood by the hole-not too close and looked back down into the barn while he threw two or three bales of hay down to be distributed to the animals.
It was an event that I’m sure happened often in my young life and I’m not sure why that day stands out to me, but it is no doubt what I’ll see in my minds eye when I think about him.
I’m sad that my younger siblings don’t remember my grandfather as clearly in this way. When we were all pretty young, he had a stroke and was no longer the robust farmer that I see when I picture him.
I hope that when they close their eyes and see him that its not him in his chair during the last few weeks needing help doing everyday tasks.
My grandfather was not the helped but the helper for all but a few weeks of his 84 years.
My dad joked about his father-in-law and how he got things done. My dad, a confessed procrastinator, was used to waiting a few days (or weeks or months) to get something done around the house.
My grandfather, on the other hand, had things fixed before most of the family knew they were broken.
He was never, in my eyes, a frail man, but a man of strength- even in his last moments. Despite having a 13 cm mass on his lung, he told us over and over that he wasn’t having any pain. The doctors prescribed him morphine but only a few times he asked for pain medication, and then all he wanted was plain Tylenol.
He didn’t want to stay in his bed and was moved into his chair to join the family in reminiscing about days on the farm and raising my mother, aunt and uncle.
I often wonder how my siblings and younger cousins will remember him and I hope that they see him how I do- a super-hero type man whose strength continued even at his weakest.
