This blog has mostly been about my professional (or at least, profession-related) activities and opinions, but I feel no shame in letting a little of other - more important - aspects of "me" surface on occasion.
Today I got the very sorrowful news that my dear Grandad, Keith Middleton, has passed away. Battling cancer and a constant barrage of strokes and heart-attacks, Keith's body finally decided it was time to pass on.
My Grandad was a major influence in my life, starting from a very young age when my parents divorced (I was 4 years old) and we went to live with my grandparents for a while. I enrolled in pre-school, and it was Grandad's leather work bag, swaying into view at a 4-year-old's eye level as he dropped by on his way home from work to pick me up, along with the ready smile and kind eyes, that reminded me that families still meant something very important and essential. The nights in his lap reading storybooks also probably helped pave the way to what was to become a very healthy passion for books and stories throughout my life.
Grandad was hilarious, cheeky, but above all kind and fiercely loyal. In his final years as he talked about friends lost in New Guinea while he was at war with Japan, or the happenings of the Langwarrin Football Club (a town he'd lived in a long time ago now - but with a football club he'd poured enormous time into developing and serving as president for over many years), some family members kindly remarked on them as the ramblings of a man passing into senility. Far from it - Grandad was just incredibly loyal to all the people he came into contact with and retaining a memory of it all and recounting it was his way of maintaining that loyalty - that bond. He also made the best darned home brew you ever tasted in your life (and part of the fun in sitting down with him to drink it was the accompanying collection of hilarious tales about his misadventures with learning to brew it on his own).
Kids adored him, without exception, because there was no doubt he adored them. I saw him very seldom during the 10 years I was living in Korea, but I was lucky enough to visit Grandad in hospital about two weeks ago and introduce him to his newest grandchildren (my son Jamie and baby daughter Hannah). Jamie, just turned 4, is notoriously shy around new people, and extremely uncomfortable in hospital settings. But he looked at his Great Grandad, still holding himself up in a chair and drinking his tea without assistance, and positively beamed. He even went forward without prompting and shook Grandad's hand and kissed him. What was touching to me was that Grandad's face looked just as warm, innocent and cheeky - despite what must have been ruinous pain running through his body.
I have a lot of Norse blood running through my veins - a gift from great grandparents who moved to Australia from Fetlar in the Shetland Islands (on my grandmother's side), and Largs in Scotland (where Grandad's family came from). It was this heritage that spurred me in my undergraduate years to learn Swedish (Norwegian wasn't available at my university), then Old Icelandic, Old Swedish and even Runic (encompassing everything from ancient Nordic to Proto-Germanic). It resulted in a term at Uppsala University in Sweden, with fascinating forays into the fields and forests of Uppland to study the enscriptions on rune stones anywhere from 900 to 1,500 years old. The heritage and language study also ensured that, on a driving trip through Scotland, I made sure I stopped for a while next to the water in Largs - the town from where Grandad's family came - and felt the long echoing ancestral whispers flutter around my young ears.
The Norse were wise (in their own way), and a particular verse from Hávamál ("The wisdom of Odin") strikes me as particularly appropriate here - both for the words and the language they come from:
Deyr fé
Deyja frændr
Deyr sjálfr ið sama
En orðstír
Deyr aldregi
Hveim er sér góðan getr
It's not quite possible to fully appreciate this verse without hearing it in the archaic and beautifully supple Norse ljóðaháttr metre, but hopefully the translation will get my meanings and feelings across:
Wealth dies
Friends die
And (one day) you die yourself
Words of stirring (praise)
Will never perish
Nor the noble name of he who does good deeds
It is at a time like this, with a venerable and very deeply loved and respected family member passing away, that the timeless truth of these words rings out.
Your noble name and good deeds are indeed deathless, Grandad. These are my orðstír (stirring words of praise) for you, and may they too never die, while I have breath and someone else to read them.
Grandad, thank you.
