My grandpa died today

I share a LOT of my life through my art and through social media (which – whether art-related or not) I consider to be for the purposes of promoting my art. There’s one part of my life that I rarely, if ever, touch upon and it’s a pretty big part of my life. It’s the reason I’m still in Sarasota.

My grandparents moved to Sarasota to be closer to their eldest child, my dad. And then, shortly thereafter, my dad suddenly died. That left me as their only relative in the area. I’d never been particularly close with my grandparents (I’ve not even been particularly close with my parents) but when my dad died, I decided that I should try to be closer with my grandparents. So I started seeing them every week. Then twice a week. And – in times when something was wrong – everyday. 

Maybe I haven’t shared that because it conflicts with the ORPHAN IMAGE / ABANDONED BY WOLVES narrative that I’ve clung to my whole life. Maybe it just felt uncomfortable to include them in my story and my work when they aren’t of an age where they’d even be aware of it or know how to feel about/comprehend it, even if I tried to explain it to them. To this day, I’m still not sure they really understand my life. 

You guys remember when I made a series of vague posts about being overwhelmed and “the world beating the shit out of me” last month? (The first video was the one where I noted that a HAMMER had even hit me in the head?) Well those were really about shit going in with my grandparents. I had to continually postpone my outta state trip, cutting down 5 weeks to just 17 days by the time I actually left – at which point things seemed mostly okay.

When I got back last week, things were less okay. And today, my grandpa died. I was prepared for it. I knew it was coming. But not now. Not today. I thought he still had a couple weeks in him. And, honestly, I thought he’d likely hang on even past that – past the point when it made any sense. That did not happen.

I think I’m dealing with it pretty well. Not well enough to make a video without crying but – Y’KNOW – I’m not in PERPETUAL anguish. I am only INTERMITTENTLY crying.

I wanna say a few things about my grandpa in recognition and appreciation of the life he lived.

He spent his life as a criminal defense attorney and he FUCKING LOVED IT. His idea of fun was to go sit in courtrooms and just watch the mundane/daily courtroom shit that happened.

I didn’t go to law school to make him proud. I didn’t give my family a single thought when I made that decision. But he WAS proud. And when I graduated by the skin of my teeth, strung out on heroin – taking my exams at the absolute last minute long after everyone else (thanks to special arrangements made by the school registrar who was sympathetic to my addiction) I didn’t find out I’d passed my exams until about 36 hours before the ceremony. He was on a plane as soon as he found out. I didn’t walk high school or college graduations but I did that one for him.

I don’t remember if he even knew yet that I was a drug addict. My dad might have given him some other reason why we didn’t know about my grades or whether I’d be graduating until the last minute. But he knew by the end of that same year. And he paid to put me in one of the best inpatient dual diagnosis/rehab facilities in the country. 

The painting I’m working on right now is called POOR FOREVER. And it’s not about being poor forever, it’s about the attitude I have about money and how frugal I am because I don’t want to be POOR FOREVER. I don’t often spend money lightly. That comes from him by way of my dad. My dad kinda was poor forever. But my grandpa made a good living but still chose to live as if he didn’t. But when it came to getting treatment for his shitty drug addict grandson who hardly ever called, that all went out the window. He SPENT THE MONEY.

And then five weeks later I got kicked out of treatment. And two days later, he paid ANOTHER (expensive) facility to take me. And then five weeks later, that one kicked me out too. And then I ran the streets for a few months, being a drug-addled, dishonest fuck up until I broke down crying, on a bench, on the side of the road, in the rain. And then he paid a THIRD rehab to take me. 

Seven weeks later, can you guess what happened? I GOT KICKED OUT. But this time, something in me was a little different. And I worked to convince them to take me back. And when they agreed to it two weeks later, my grandpa dropped thousands of dollars AGAIN to get me readmitted. He spent thousands of dollars to get me checked in FOR THE FOURTH TIME. I stayed for 8 months. And while I can’t say that I’ve stayed clean ever since, it was what I learned in that last stint of treatment that’s the reason for the clean time that I got upon leaving and any/all of the clean stints I’ve had since, including these last 17 months.

As WE ALL KNOW – I am IMPERVIOUS TO DEATH/CANNOT BE KILLED, but (dropping my shtick for a minute) it’s super unlikely that I’d still be breathing if not for him.

These last few years, his Parkinson’s has fucked up his brain and dementia has taken over. A lot of my time with him has not been of a super high quality. I didn’t really get to know him and he didn’t really get to know me as much as I’d have liked. But – if nothing else – I know he appreciated the way I’ve shown up for him and my grandma (to whom he was married for SEVENTY FIVE YEARS). And I know he loved me.

One last thing about my grandpa. It’s a story I only heard recently. One year, he had a client who was sitting in jail simply because he couldn’t afford the bail. It wasn’t a major crime or an expensive bail but it was still more than this guy could swing. This was right before Christmas and – though my grandpa was Jewish – that still didn’t sit right with him. It’s illegal for lawyers to pay for their clients’ bail (for a number of reasons I won’t get into) so there was nothing he could do about it himself. So he went into every synagogue in the area and told them, “Hey – please post bail for this guy and I will make a donation to your synagogue for the amount of the bail and then some. And then when he shows up to his court date, you’ll even get that money back.” None of the synagogues would do it. So he went around to all of the churches in the area until he finally found one that took him up on his offer. All so this random low-paying (possibly never-paying) client wouldn’t be locked up over the holidays. That’s the kind of person he was.

The world is worse off for having lost him, but it’s much better for having him. The positive impact he had will carry on in more ways than I will ever even know. He was 96 years old.