Numb3rs fanfic; Grandpa
Title: Grandpa
Author: msgrahamcracker
Characters: Don Eppes
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,473
Spoilers: none
Summary: There has always been a special connection between a grandpa and his grandchildren.
Disclaimer: Only the storyline and orginial characters are mine.
Grandpa
~by MsGrahamCracker~
“Grandfather-grandchild relationships are simple. Grandpas are short on criticism and long on love.”
Author Unknown
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I used to tease Charlie that he got his nose from our Grandpa Eppes and his girly curls from Grandma. That wasn't exactly true, but he was too young to know the difference, and it upset him, which was, of course, what I was after. The truth was, while Grandpa Eppes did indeed have a rather prominent proboscis, one that both Dad and Charlie were unfortunate to inherit, it was Grandpa who also passed the dark ringlets down to all of us. Grandma kept his hair trimmed most of the time, but we all remember the month she went to New York to spend some time with her sister and Grandpa's hair exploded in dark curls. Mom offered to cut it for him, but he was typically stubborn. “No one else but Esther has cut my hair in nearly fifty years.”
Then, there are the pictures of Dad's early hippie days, showing his over-the-shoulder dark, wavy tresses, held back by a tye-dyed headband.
And, I certainly can't deny that at certain times in my life, I've allowed the Eppes curls to grow out. It seems Robin likes to run her fingers through them, and who am I to deny her that pleasure?
Charlie also inherited Grandpa Eppes' stature. At his peak, Grandpa never stood taller than 5' 7” and in his later years, as arthritis set in and he began to stoop over, he was barely over 5' 4”. I had a growth spurt when I hit 14 and in one summer's time I soared over him, which he sputtered about - but no matter how tall I was or how stooped over he became, to me and Charlie, he was always larger than life.
Charlie and I talk a lot about him these days. We sit by the Koi pond and toss memories back and forth like a baseball. With five years separating us, we sometimes remember things a little differently.
In the early years, when Charlie first began showing signs of his genius, Dad and Mom would take him all over the country for special testing. They both pulled from their vacation time and sick days from work, but they didn't feel right taking me out of school, so Grandma and Grandpa Eppes would come stay with me at the Craftsman.
Grandpa and I spent a lot of time together those days. After all of these years, some of the details of those days are too vague to recall with any definite clarity, but, thoughts of him always evoke strong, pleasurable images of my childhood and Charlie and I have found, that while we both have different memories of the “man”, we both remember the same “Grandpa.”
He smelled of Old Spice and pipe tobacco. He had strong, wide hands that could throw a mean baseball, turn the pages of my favorite storybook, or lift me up to his shoulders to see over the heads in front of us at the Veteran's Day parade downtown. His dark, kind eyes always sparkled, and he had these long laugh lines along the side of his face. Despite his age, he had this youthfulness about him that was contagious. Once, when Dad and Mom took Charlie to Boston for two weeks, Grandpa and I built a tree house in an old walnut tree in the back yard. It was still there twenty some years later when a late summer storm took the tree down.
When they would visit on holidays or weekends he took us for ice cream or played chess with Charlie or took us fishing or swimming and he always went with Dad and us to the ballpark on Father's Day.
I remember one time, when Charlie was only five, Dad and Mom were asked to bring him to some math convention or symposium being held in Seattle. It was in June or July and I didn't have school, so I went with them. Grandpa had a brother living in Portland and he and Grandma came along, too.
Charlie was a hit at the convention, of course, and came away with a number of certificates and announcements that proclaimed him a child prodigy and boy wonder and mini-Einstein or something, Dad and Mom were ecstatic and the kid was definitely eating up the attention.
On the way home, Charlie sat upfront with Mom & Dad and I sat in the back seat with Grandpa and Grandma. While Mom went on and on about Charlie's ability and he went on and on about the convention, Grandpa told me stories in the back seat. He showed me his special magic tricks with quarters mysteriously coming out of my ears and objects that vanished out of his hands, then we played the alphabet game with billboards and street signs until I fell asleep on his lap.
Dr. Bradford, the bureau psychiatrist, would say that I was jealous of Charlie and all the attention he got that day, but the truth was, I felt like I had the best of it - I got Grandpa - and not too long ago, Charlie and I were talking about this, and what he remembers about that trip was not the convention or his certificates, it was missing out on the fun I was having in the back seat.
I've been through a certain amount of sessions with Bradford, who spent way too much time on the dynamics of growing up with Charlie's notoriety - and the jealousy that came from that. You know what I think? I think with any siblings, there is always a certain amount of jealousy and it went both ways with Charlie and me. Yeah, I admit, he got more time with Dad and Mom - but I got more time with Grandpa.
Charlie and I have gotten over those issues. They're in the past, now, where they belong, and we don't waste time dwelling on them.
For some reason, the memory of my first school play has always stuck with me. Grandpa and Grandma were there, of course, and I think it was a circus theme and I was a lion tamer or something. Dad told me I made everyone laugh when, during our final bows, I looked into the audience and asked, “How'd I do, Grandpa?”
Vern Weston, a family friend, came over to talk to Dad and Mom after the show and while praising my “performance” he asked if I was going to go to Hollywood and become an actor. Before either of my parents could respond, Grandpa announced, in a stern, matter-of-fact voice, “No, no. None of that foolishness for Donnie. He's going to be a ballplayer.” That simple - as if he knew.
After Charlie and I graduated and I left for college, I didn't get to see much of Grandpa. He was alone, then - Grandma had died when I was15. With Mom and Charlie at Princeton, Grandpa spent a lot of time with Dad. He made it to a few of my home games, but it was hard for him to get around, then.
He wasn't around at all by the time I decided to quit playing and joined the FBI. He wouldn't have cared, though, as long as it was something I wanted to do.
At one time, no one could have convinced me that there could have been a better grandpa than mine. He was the best, ever.
That was before my daughter, Sarah - the miracle that made Dad a grandpa - was born.
Even though Charlie and Amita were married before we were, Robin and I were first to give Dad a grandchild. They tried for years and finally followed up with 3 boys, but for a few years it was just Dad and Sarah.
She was his first grandchild and the first little girl in the Eppes household. Mom would have loved her.
She was Dad's little princess and he was her key to another world; a world of picnics with peanut butter sandwiches and Popsicles by the Koi pond and trips to the zoo or the library. It was a world where he was not hampered by schedules and work as Robin and I were, and his time was hers and hers alone - until Charlie's boys came along, and one by one, he included them into the magical world of grandparents.
He could never deny the “Jewish-father” in him, so it was natural that the term “Jewish-grandfather” would apply, as well. He carried so many pictures of his grandchildren in his wallet, he actually started carrying two wallets with him at all times.
Sarah and the boys could always count on him to have an activity planned when they spent time with him - anything from finger-painting to story-time to trips to the park or science museum.
The cookie jar in the kitchen - the same one Mom always kept full when Charlie and I were kids - became famous for it's ability to always be full of freshly baked cookies. Charlie and I suspected he would stay up some nights to achieve that.
Quiet time with Sarah would find the two of them in the kitchen. Dad loved going through Mom's old recipes with Sarah and teaching her what he could never get through to Charlie and me.
I remember the year Charlie, Amita, Robin and I all showed up at the doorstep to his condo on Halloween night with one fairy princess and three mad-scientists in tow - the youngest one, only a few months old. Dad could have won an Oscar for pretending he didn't know who they were. “Grandpa!” they squealed and giggled, “It's us!”
The summer he helped Charlie's boys build a tree house in the backyard, he made sure Sarah had her own playhouse - complete with the “No Boys Allowed” sign on the door.
She adored him and he treasured her - as he did all of his grandchildren. He told me once that his grandchildren taught him what true love meant. “It means watching Scooby Doo while the playoffs are on another channel.”
It couldn't have been easy for Dad and Mom raising me and Charlie, and I know they both had regrets about the time they didn't spend with me. I heard someone say once that being a grandfather gave you a second chance. If that is true, Dad more than made up for lost time with me. He gave his grandchildren memories that will live with them forever.
He was there, of course, for Sarah's first school play - well, nursery school. She was four or five. Robin worked an entire week, in the evenings after work, on a hideous green broccoli outfit that clarified, beyond the shadow of a doubt, why my lovely wife was a first class lawyer - not a seamstress. Somehow, Sarah managed to stumble across the stage without falling flat on her florets. I can still see her expression when she saw us in the audience. Her little hand, still plump with baby fat and encumbered by yards of green material, waved up and down excitedly and she mouthed, “Hi, Daddy! Hi, Mommy!” To Dad, sitting next to me, she threw a kiss. He told me later that little gesture nearly brought him to tears.
In a familiar pattern, after the performance, the parents and family friends met in the gymnasium for cookies and punch. Sarah's teacher claimed our daughter had the grace of a ballerina - it being the only thing that kept her upright as a vegetable - and that she should consider dancing as a profession. Dad was flabbergasted and downright insulted. “No way!” he announced. “This little lady is going to be a lawyer - the best one ever - just like her mother and grandmother.”
He was right, of course. She graduated tops in her class at Stanford.
It's funny, but I don't remember Grandpa Eppes getting old. His familiar bushy, gray hair, his wrinkles, and the age spots on his hands, were always just there - a part of him. Maybe I didn't notice because I was too busy growing up, myself.
It wasn't that way with Dad. Charlie and I saw him fail a little more each year. By the time Sarah entered eighth grade, his once strong legs had grown weak and he needed a cane to get around. When that changed to a walker, we made a family decision to sell his condo and move him in with us. He spent three months with Charlie and Amita at the Craftsman, then three months with Robin, Sarah and I, then back to Charlie's. Sarah helped him decorate the downstairs guest room. She took a lot of time making sure he had everything he needed.
He was gone before she or Charlie's boys graduated but, underneath her graduation robe, she wore the locket he had given her when she first started school - one of Mom's favorites. Robin spent four months looking for a matching set of earrings for her and we presented them to her just before leaving the house for the commencement ceremony. Later, with tears in her eyes, she told me she felt Dad there beside her as she accepted her diploma.
She's wearing the locket and earrings tonight. They sparkle in the dim light of the school auditorium where we are sitting, watching DJ, her son and my first grandchild, walk boldly towards the microphone stand in the middle of the stage. His eyes search for us in the vast school auditorium and he smiles when he finds us, letting a small wave of his hand escape before he remembers himself. Reaching up to adjust the microphone that was last used by a third grader, he brings it down to his level and clears his throat.
I admit, I entered fatherhood kicking and screaming - terrified that I would break Sarah or scar her for life with some crazed misguided sense of over protectiveness or worse. Getting a head-strong teenage daughter through school was more challenging that any of the major drug busts I did.
Becoming a grandparent was much easier. There was that sense of been there, done that with a touch of wicked retribution when DJ and his sisters give their mother a rough time.
There is nothing more powerful than that first moment when your grandchild wraps his hand around your finger. My thoughts immediately went to Dad and Grandpa Eppes and I wondered - no, I knew, they felt the same thing. I recalled a quote from Margaret Meade; “Everyone needs to have access both to grandparents and grandchildren in order to be a full human being.”
When DJ clutched my finger, I felt full, complete, as if the circle of life they talk about was real.
Not surprisingly, Charlie has a different outlook on being a grandfather. When his fourth grandchild was born he told me, “Have you noticed that grandchildren accept us for ourselves? They accept us without rebuke or effort to change us, as no one in our entire lives has ever done.”
He's right, of course. I've never know such blind, unflinching acceptance.
DJ is five now and his sisters, the twins, Rachel and Robin, are three. They are my legacy - a promise that a little bit of me will go on after I'm gone.
Often, Robin will take the twins for a “girls day” and DJ and I will hang out. We'll go to the park and get some ice cream or go to the movies or just sit in front of the fireplace in my overstuffed chair and I'll read to him. I don't see as well as I use to - even the tri-focals don't always work - but DJ doesn't seem to mind if I miss or word or two.
Sometimes, in my reflective moments, I think God made grandchildren to keep us young - and compensate us for getting old.
Charlie and I spend a few afternoons every week, sitting in the sun, by the Koi pond, watching our grandchildren play. His and Amita's sons each married lovely women, live close by and presented them with the grand sum of seven grandchildren. That's a total of 10 great grandkids, Dad!
On stage, DJ recites a timeless poem on the four seasons that probably has the distinction of being recited in every kindergarten class in the country at one time or another. I helped him practice it last week and, of course, he delivered it flawlessly. When he's done, he steps away from the microphone, but, before he takes his place in line with his classmates again, he stops and looks directly at me. Subtly, because he's way too cool to be anything else, his hand comes up and proudly flashes me a “thumbs up”. I laugh and return it and he hurries to his place in line.
When the show is over, I find myself, once again, talking with family and friends over punch and cookies. Someone mentions the fact that DJ had the highest score on the admissions test and immediately the subject turns to the direction of DJ's life. His father and Sarah's husband, Jeffery, wants DJ to follow his footsteps in the multi-million dollar software company he founded. Sarah, ever the practical one, wants him to be a plastic surgeon.
“What do you think, Dad?” she asks. “What do you want DJ to be?”
And for me, the answer is crystal clear. I don't even have to think about it.
I want for DJ the same things every parent and grandparent wants for their children; I want him to live a long and healthy life, - one full of family and love - with a job he enjoys, no matter what it is.
The answer is also in the 30 plus years I've spent with Robin, the remarkable woman who's blessed my life in ways I never imagined. For a while, I know Dad despaired of Charlie and I ever finding that - someone to share life's joys and challenges with - and, admittedly, we were both a little late in that, but, in the end, we both hit the jackpot. I want that, too, for DJ and his sisters.
The answer to Sarah's question also lies in the lazy, comfortable afternoons with Charlie - who swears he's never been so at peace and content with his life.
What do I want DJ to be? The answer to that resides in that place deep inside, where memories and dreams are stored; where Grandpa Eppes is still throwing grounders to me or pushing Charlie on the swing, while he squeals and begs to go 8 percent higher next time - where Dad and Sarah are laughing in the kitchen making Sunday morning pancakes, and where I rejoice in the wonderful feeling of sitting down in my chair and have DJ and his sisters all come running for that special spot on Grandpa's lap.
So, I look at him, my grandson, and his bright eyes return the look - all innocence and trust and acceptance. Love. Robin smiles knowingly and squeezes my hand as I turn to my lovely Sarah. “What do I want DJ to be?” My hand, a little shaky now with age, glides into his soft, dark curls and he wraps his arms around the top of my leg and leans into me.
“I want DJ to be a grandpa.”
The end