Saturday, August 30, 2008
For as long as I can remember, beginning in early September and continuing on into the winter months, my Father was never around on Saturdays. He would disappear around 10 a.m. and would not return until late in the evening. Sometimes he would return in high spirits, laughing and joking and treating my sister and I to an ice cream. Other days he would walk through the door and storm directly upstairs to his room, grumbling and muttering the occasional curse to himself as he shut the door behind him.
My father spent these autumn Saturdays with his father, my Grandpa, cheering on the Boston College Eagles Football team at Alumni Stadium. It was not just a weekend activity to them, but a cherished tradition between father and son. This ritual began long before I came into this world, over 25 plus years these two die-hards have followed their boys through it all. They rarely missed a home game, setting up camp hours before the opening kickoff to talk and grill steaks on a tiny hibachi from the trunk of my father's car. They never missed a quarter, they never left early when things looked bad (unless it was a torrential downpour and/or a white-out blizzard, and even then they had to force themselves out) and they never gave up on their team.
As my grandfather grew older, it became harder and harder for him to get around the Stadium. But that certainly did not stop him from going nor did it stop my father from escorting him. My father devised many an elaborate plan to sneakily procure parking close to the entrance, and would walk shoulder to shoulder with his father no matter how slow his gait became.
My father always told me that he did this for his father: a WWII vet, a hard worker, and a devoted (and very busy) father and grandfather, the games were a complete release for my Grandpa. "The sights, the smells, the sounds, the plays, the emotion of it all, everything about it is what makes it special for him-- he loves it, and that's why we go," my father has said. But I know these football Saturdays were not just special for my Grandpa; my father cherished them as well. It was time he got to spend with his father watching a sport and a team he loved, and it made him overwhelmingly happy.
So thank you, Grandpa, for everything you did for me, for our family, and for our country during your lifetime. But most of all thank you for giving me my father, and for giving him so much joy during those countless Saturdays at Alumni Satdium-- nothing could have made him happier.
I love you, Rest in Peace, and Go Eagles!
