I use the term grandfather pretty fluidly, so a conversation about my family can be a little confusing. Generally, when I say grandfather, I'm talking about my biological grandfather. My dad's dad. I barely knew him. I recall one time where I wasn't a toddler that my grandfather visited me. I was ten, he took me and my cousins to a flea market, bought us a bunch of stuff, and that was it. I don't remember a conversation, just the things. And perhaps that's my ten year old brain only remembering what was important at the time: a bunch of gifts from a dude I barely knew.
If I use the term Bumpa, I'm talking about my grandfather. My grandmother's second husband, no biological relationship to me, but he's who I grew up around, he's my family. My Bumpa was from China, and I always thought it was so funny when I'd tell people about things my Bumpa told me, having to explain he was from China, and then having people go, "Yeah, I can see Chinese in you!" Ha ha, you cannot. But it thrilled me, anyway, because for the longest time, I didn't know that I WASN'T Asian. That my Bumpa was not my blood family. I had literally zero idea that our relationship wasn't as real as the one I had with my mom's dad, my grandpa George. I assumed Bumpa was my blood. But none of that matters, he was my family, he was my Bumpa, and I love him forever. When people tell me they can see the Chinese in my features, I definitely chuckle when I tell them that Bumpa and I weren't blood related, but inside, I feel a surge of pride at even that small, awkwardly incorrect statement making our relationship as biologically tight as I ever thought it was.
My mom's dad, my Grandpa George, is my hero. He's why I wanted to be a cop, he's why I wanted to be seen as tough and strong, because he was tough and strong, and he's why I care about everything so fucking much, but I care about it quietly, and with a lot of snide remarks. My grandpa was the kind of man that, when I had a cold, and I was up with a barking cough all night, would sneak off in his Mustang that he drove until the day he died, buy my cough syrup, and then have his wife (my grandma Dottie, his second wife. My mom's mom died before I was born) administer the meds to me, so I'd never catch on that his gruff exterior secreted away the softest, most wonderful underbelly.
I knew these men. They were Bumpa and Grandpa George. Grandfather seems so standoffish, which is why I never refer to my dad's dad, if I can help it, as anything other than "My dad's dad" or "my biological grandfather". There's a huge distinction in terms for me, though I admittedly slip every once and awhile and call Bumpa or Grandpa George "my grandfather", and I always feel guilty when I do, because they were so much more than that to me.
When my dad was a little boy, his dad, my grandfather, ran off with the babysitter. Everybody's worst nightmare, the joke of all separated families in that era. "Did dad run off with the babysitter, or go out for cigarettes?" That really set my dad's family down a shit course. My dad and his three siblings (Paul, the youngest, Renee, the second youngest, Mary, the second oldest, and my dad, the oldest) spent a portion of their lives in foster care. And not the beautiful family love story, instagram, viral post kind of foster care. The bad kind. The ugly kind that people pretend doesn't exist. My dad was a rough, street-wise kid growing up, and statistically, it's not an asshole thing to do to attribute that to a broken home and a hard as fuck childhood. Meanwhile, my dad's dad had an entirely new family, and I have three more aunts and an uncle because of it.
One of my aunts is a painter, and she's just so talented. She's been taking a master class for painters this last week, posting her work, and getting bathed in praise that she 100% deserves. I've been paying close attention to her work, and yesterday, she posted one that looked like an old painting you'd find tucked away in the corner of a Goodwill. It's an oval shaped painting, brown monochrome, showcasing a waterfall nestled gently in a dense forest, with a babbling stream leading directly into the edge of the painting. I saw she had a lot of comments, and I thought about commenting, so I read them. One of them was from her sister, my half aunt, saying that for some reason, the painting reminded her of dad. My aunt the painter responds with similar excitement and affirmation. It does, indeed, remind her of dad. Their sister, my half aunt, chimes in with her wholehearted agreement. It just reminds them all of dad! A touching sentiment, for sure.
But as I stared and stared and fucking STARED at that painting, I couldn't understand what they saw that reminded them of my grandfather. I didn't get it. And I found myself bawling at my desk, angrily wiping away tears that, fuck, man, I just didn't expect.
I've been doing my family tree. My dad and I bought the Ancestry DNA kits, and we've sent our DNA samples back to their processing place so we can be fed whatever info they can glean from a tube of our spit. I've branched out my mom's mom's mom's mom's line all the way back to England in the 1560s. I've found the church that my 13x great grandfather was baptized in in England, and sent my mom a picture of the church and the log book. I found my Native American ancestry, and looked up the history of my forgotten, swallowed by the Iroquois Nation, tribe. I found, on my dad's side, the French Canadian roots are MUCH closer than I thought, and I knew my French Canadian great-grandfather that immigrated here. I'm on my way to tracking the Irish roots on my dad's mom's side down. It's been so fucking thrilling, I've been digging and digging and digging and finding so much cool stuff. But I can't find anything on my dad's dad's side.
I have my dad, his dad, and his dad's dad, but after that, the line peters out. I suspect that my family name is not ACTUALLY Tucci, but that we were Americanized when we arrived here in the 1900s. To the best of my researching, that's when my great grandfather came to America. In 1900. But I can't find our name in any port records, not through Ellis Island, nothing has turned up, and I've been searching so hard. And there's fucking NOBODY that knows this answer that's alive now. These are questions that my half relatives never asked, because I asked my aunt if she knew, and she didn't. She has poorly drawn assumptions about our family and they are incorrect. I've done the leg work and the research, and what she thinks is our lineage is not. There's a family rumor that we're related to a pope. We are not, it's horseshit. I can track all kinds of people that we are NOT related to, but I can't find the ones we ARE related to, and I have fucking nobody to ask.
I never considered not knowing my biological grandfather a loss. I had other grandpas that loved me, I never felt a void. And honestly, I don't think I felt a void today. I don't wish I could have known a man that didn't particularly care to get to know me, but I feel guilty about that. I think, anyway.
I'm hungry for all of this information so I can fluff out my family tree. I want to know my grandfather's vital statistics...where he was born, when he died, when his parents were born and died (specifically. I have vague years), where in Italy we hail from, what the big lie on the 1920s census was about (I found this, and I am fascinated by it, and I just wish I knew the story), I want to be able to tell my children things about their heritage that I don't know. These are the things I've been desperately digging to find out about my grandfather. And then, this fucking painting.
This fucking painting points out that his family knows why a painting is so like him. How it could remind all of his children of him, somehow. And I don't see it, I don't get it, and I never once would have asked that question. Not in a million years would I have asked questions that could have imbued the essence of a painting onto his soul in my memory. I don't really give a fuck, I want to know about our lineage. And it's fucking me up.
Perhaps it's so upsetting because I never really needed a reminder that I wasn't his family. I knew it. Biology doesn't mean anything if you're not going to make it mean anything. He has been a branch on a tree for me, nothing more, and that's all he ever had to be.
Today, he became a painting, and I fucking hate him for it.
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