Summation

As I mentioned back in the Fall, I wrote my grandfather's eulogy. As it was at his request and something to make everyone comforted by the situation, I left out a lot of other opinions I had about him, ones that were less than flattering. It isn't that I lied in what I wrote. People are complex. They have good qualities and bad qualities. My grandfather was no exception to this and in his eulogy, I opted to write about the good.

But today, when I was on the phone with my dad, I realized the less than savory aspects of my grandfather's personality could be summed up by one action he repeated annually. My dad is a vegetarian and has been for most of his adult life. And yet, every year, my grandfather would take my dad out to eat at Catfish Cove for his birthday.

He didn't do this because he's one of these people who wants to make some kind of statement to nonmeat eaters. He didn't do this because he hated my dad. No, he did this because my grandfather wanted to eat frog legs and my dad's birthday was just an excuse to do so. Really, my dad factored very little into the situation. He mostly factored into it not at all.

Every year, it was the same thing. He never asked my dad where he wanted to go for his birthday. If he had, even in our area there are places where Dad could have gotten a decent vegetarian entree. He would just call him up and tell him what time to meet at Catfish Cove, a place, literally, with meat in the name of it. He would dine on frog legs and shrimp and hushpuppies with fish bits in them while my dad at corn, green beans, and a salad.

This sums up a lot about my grandfather pretty well. He was deeply self-centered. Even when he THOUGHT he was being generous, it was still mostly about him. It's maddening and honestly still frustrating because most of my dad's stress since my grandfather's death is due to selfish decisions my grandfather made before he died that have caused all kinds of headaches where handling his property has been concerned. He wanted to do what he wanted to do and to hell with everyone and everything else.

On a side note, my dad said he plans for him and my step-mom to go eat eggplant parmesan this year for his birthday. I think that's a better idea.