Ewart G. Balbirsingh

My grandfather was a handsome man--Strong jawbone, high cheekbones the color of terra cotta. We grew up hearing that he was orphaned after his parents traveled to Canada in search of a better life. The plan was, like so many other West Indians, to earn enough money and then "send" for the rest from home. Unfortunately his mother passed away, the family lore always saying that it was the "draft". Now, when Caribbean folk talk about the draft, they not talking about the military, they talking about that North American and European cold, that cold that gets down to the center of your bone, that cold that wraps itself around all your vitals and asphyxiates whatever warmth you have out of you.
Apparently, the story goes, his mother sewed for a living and one day she ironed something, a handkerchief actually, and then went out into the cold. I'll never forget the picture that conjured up in my mind as a child: A brown woman with a blur of a face heating an iron up on the stovetop, carefully ironing out the wrinkles of her kerchief she had just sewn to sell and walking out into the snow-covered streets where the draft would wrap itself around her, leaving her little son in Caroni to live his life with his Aunt.
Once his mother passed, his father stayed in Canada, remarried and when last we heard had even made it to Queens, New York. But as far as I know, my grandfather never met him. As a result though, I know he does have some family, Balbirsinghs perhaps, who live in Queens.
My grandfather was typical of his time: He believed in the code of the gentleman (when he was sober at least) and thought everything British was the pinnacle of civilization. He reminded us often that "it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all", and spoke about the word penultimate with such a passion that I wonder now what the message, hidden, was all about? Penultimate--the one just before the last. But then I remember: he always used it to describe me and my position in the line of grandchildren.
He wore those Caribbean cotton shirts with pleats, neatly ironed slacks with a pair of Bata slippers. He continued to drink despite his diabetes and and drove a white beaten up Galant until my grandmother forced him to get rid of it after he had driven the car into the house. He loved to mix his rum with coconut water and he was the man who taught me about fear.
See, this is my earliest memory: Maracas Bay with my grandparents. I must be anything from 4 to 6. I never liked to go into the water and every one would tease me and say that "Lesley? Who she? She does bade in the sand!" But I didn't care--there's one thing I respect and that's the force of Nature. But my grandaddy did what every other decent parent did at that time: They took their grandchildren out to introduce them to the sea. But I didn't want to go. He took me anyway. I screamed. He took me all the way out and I screamed for my mother. He held me tighter and I could feel his body tensing up next to mine and I could feel the irritation growing from him. I couldn't understand his body language. Why didn't he just take me back to the shore? I can't remember his words exactly, but I am sure it must have been, "Take it easy girl, you are with me. There's nothing to fear." But I didn't listen and finally by the time he took me back to the shore he might as well had pelted me into my grandmother's arms.
It is a memory I can never rid myself of and have never been able to make sense of until now, this very moment as I type. See, my Grandfather and I had a very complicated relationship. He admonished me constantly for my loudness, crassness, unlady-like ways but woke up every morning to make me oatmeal. I would go through his dusty collection of books and find such gems as Joyce and Milton. And although my last name was Brown, I totally identified with the Balbirsingh compulsion to lime: Chill out with friends, beer (or whatever drink of your choice) and let the true storytellers, the everyday men and women, regurgitate life experiences for you in such a way that it all--the madness and the poverty--actually seemed to make sense. There was something in the way my grandfather stood on the gallery in Trinidad as I packed my stuff up to go and return to Brooklyn, something in the way he stood there and stared with glassy eyes at the hills that surround Diamond Vale that let me know that despite our differences I was loved by him. And again, I now know what happened that day on that beach between my grandfather and I that although a grownup, was difficult for him to swallow. My grandfather wanted me to trust him--and I didn't and I can see now that although he was a grown-up and I just a child, there are ways that a child's rejection can cut to one's core. So, although my grandfather Ewart G. (the G for Gladstone) Balbirsingh has since passed on, I'll just like to send a little message to him: I'm letting you take me out into that wide open sea Grandaddy, I'm letting you take me out there and I'm trusting you because you (and Shakespeare)are right--it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all and this time, I'm trusting you.
I'm out.
the lab