Books People Have Given Me Pt. 4
To My Grandfather
My maternal grandfather was a tremendous influence on me, and his presence on my life arrived at the right time.
I did not know him well. Family history before my life made it such that knowing him well was not easy. There is no blame in this. I was given his last name as my middle name. I assert my full name, Trevor Kaiser Allred, in all things requiring heart and presence because of him.
However, he did visit once when I was newly in university working on my bachelor’s degree. I wasn’t able to get work off and so he came to see me. I remember that time clearly. He held me in his gaze as if we had first met. Looking back with maturity, he had found his little grandson to be an adult.
I went up to visit him in Northern California shortly after. A quick trip, but I loved it. This was our beginning.
We began trading emails. He shared he wanted to help me with school but that he didn’t want to just give me money. He asked me to write for him. Every quarter, I would write him a personal essay about any topic. He would read it, and we would catch up about it over email.
When he passed, my grandma printed all the mails he and I shared. I have that folder. I took moments from our conversations and included his words in my first book of poetry (unpublished).
To have someone with his life experience ask me to talk about my life, give audience to my worries and victories and dreams, and to have asked for it by way of me practicing writing was something beyond gift. I would not be here doing this if it weren’t for the will of a grandfather wanting to reconnect with his grandson through writing.
He willed me his favorite philosophy books, the Dialogues of Plato. He studied philosophy at the same university I went to. I didn’t plan that.The perfect metaphor that it is a book of dialogues is not lost on me. It is a reflection of the process of he and I growing closer, learning each other, and him applying wisdom to what he saw of me.
I would read them again in Boston, still deep in my year of unemployment. I missed his guidance then, and now, and looked for his voice in the three color-coded notes in his book, glancing over the letter tucked in the cover written in his native German, and in the promise of asking questions in pursuit of wisdom.
More soon,
Trevor