Sometime around five years old, I came to live with my grandmother and her new husband, my step-grandfather. I came to know him as my grandfather until his death. In becoming an adult I have emphasized that he was my step-grandfather.
A timeless period later my mother came to live with us. This moment of landing was confusing with very vague memories. I did not really know I had landed, that I now had a 'home', parents.
There were rules and they were my grandfather's, he seemed like a bear, silent, distant. Always to be placated.
I don't really remember 'moving in' nor my mother moving in. But like being born full-blown from the forehead of Zeus - I remember my mother and I were sleeping in the same small room.
I don't remember how long I lived in the house before I was playing outside. The regime was that my mother and I spent our time pretty much in our room and we mostly ate on a separate rhythm. I remember watching TV - Hockey Night in Canada with my grandfather - funny I don't remember his favourite team - but eventually I imprinted on the Montreal Canadiens and of course Rocket Richard.
I remember my grandfather would go off on a walk to a local wooded area. One day he had just left and my grandmother - probably thinking that it would be some sort of nice bonding experience told me to join him - to catch up to him and go for a walk. I was probably timid and still shy, but off I went. As I turn the corner I could see him in the distance and called, but he never turned around or slowed down.
I never did catch up to him but was able to keep him in sight until he disappeared into the wood. I kept following him hoping I could catch up. I never did, but I did get lost. This is a woods that is now one of the local 'off-leash' areas for dogs and one that I've so frequently brought Patches too with G and C and their friends. It seems so domesticated, with a clear path that is simply a circle. But I did get lost and wandered for what seemed like quite a long time, but I eventually found my way back. I never knew whether he really had not heard me or had purposely left me behind. But this was to be the prototypical frame of our relationship.
When I was allowed to watch TV with him it was always like a visit into his domain.
A key threshold, something I only remembered again in the last decade was an occasion where for some reason we were alone - my grandmother and mother were out (this was very rare I think) and we were watching hockey. Sometimes, during watching TV a very normal sort of adult-child play happened - the type of wrestling where that child gets that adult to grab a hand, then both hands and for the child to struggle against the strength. I've played this with my kids and other people's kids and it fun, for everyone.
But on this night, my grandfather threw a blanket over me and what I remember is feeling his hand over me. I don't really remember if he fondled me, or if I became distraught because I was covered in a blanket. Somehow, I pulled away or got him to stop. I don't remember if I went to my room after or sat farther away. I'm not even sure if I later told my mother, or hinted or simply indicated being scared by being covered by the blanket - I seem to have an image of a later fight between my mother and my grandfather. Maybe this was not a 'fondling' maybe it was a moment where he let down his defences and let himself go in an act of play. Maybe, my reaction made him retreat even harder into his own coldness.
In any case the distance, fear, coldness between us never changed. And maybe, he consolidated my fear of men, of authority, of father figures.
While he was alive, I always felt an immigrant in what was the only real home I ever had.
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