grandfathers tender square there are sides of me that have been cleaved from self; bloodstreams that remain unknown. i never met my grandfathers—those branches of my family tree were blunted by arborists clearing rot long ago. john, my mother’s father, died when she was eight years old. he died in front of her, at the kitchen table, after he swallowed a handful of pain pills. his last words to her were, “this is what your mother wants.” my mother was a daddy’s girl; she told me how much she missed him when he was away from home for long stretches as a trucker. an accident while driving for work left him paralyzed and depressed. his sisters have always blamed my grandmother for his death, and so i’ve never met that side of the family, the door was swiftly shut. what i know is that, for a time, his family first settled in saskatchewan after immigrating to canada. it is suspected that they were romanian gypsies, but the records are spotty because they frequently changed the spelling of their surname. my mother has given me the phone number of my great aunt vicky, a woman i’ve never met, so i can ask her for stories, press for details, but i’ve never had the courage to call her. collin, my father’s father, died when i was eight, of alcohol-related cirrhosis. my dad didn’t go the funeral because he never had a relationship with his father. collin beat the shit out of my grandma kay, shortly after my dad was born. it was so bad the cops arrested him and threw him in jail in the 60s, which was unheard of. kay never allowed him back in the house again. my father is the only one of his siblings who didn’t have a relationship with collin as the youngest son of the family. my father met my grandfather once, over lunch when my father was 15 and away at juvie. my grandmother wanted him to see what he could become if didn’t mind a better path; my dad knew immediately that his father was a drunken fool. he never saw him again after that day at the diner. collin was a man who was very likely broken by wwii, where he was stationed as a rear upper gunman during two tours. the surname he has given me is so unique that anyone who possesses it comes from the same lineage, is a relative that i have never met before. 211010 ... epitome of incomprehensibility My father's father was gone before my birth, but Grandpa, who lived until I was 13, was genuinely kind, with several endearing qualities: a terrible French accent, a fondness for puns, and a willingness to let me stay up late watching TV when he was babysitting as long as he considered the show educational (I saw a documentary on the Titanic that ended at - gasp! - 10 PM; then I went around saying I'd "watched the Titanic" because it was considered a mark of pride for a 10-year-old to see a PG-13 movie, maybe). 211011 ... e_o_i No, I think I sincerely thought that documentary was "The Titanic" that everyone was talking about - same ship, wasn't it? Weird to think my dad's dad was 5 when it sank. 1906-1983 were his dates. His father's, only 1878-1909: killed in a train accident. 211011 what's it to you? who go blather from