My Grandpa's Shop

(Note:  I recently attended the funeral of an uncle, the last surviving member of my mother's immediate family.  He was laid to rest in the same West Texas cemetery as my grandparents.   About a week or so later, I happened to be reading through one of my older journals and came across the following piece, written in November of 2001.  I have chosen not to edit nor revise it, even though it sorely needs it-- but at the time, the words flowed from my pen to the page of my notebook in a rush, and I have decided to recapture that here.   It is very long, and I don't expect many of my 4-5 readers to even read it, but after the death of the last member of this part of my family, I found it cathartic to type it in here and post it.)

This weekend, I have had occasion to go into my grandfather's shop for the first time in several years.   My grandfather's shop is in a two-car garage that has never housed a motor vehicle in my living memory.  It does have a carport out front, a carport that I spent some autumns on top of, sweeping off the ripened pecans that had fallen from the majestic tree that spread its limbs over the carport and my Grandpa's shop.

With a certain amount of misgiving, I inserted the key into the lock and turned the handle.  The door slides up easily, despite the age of the building, sliding up on runners that my Grandpa undoubtedly oiled over the years.  Walking inside, I am taken aback by the emptiness, the devastating space inside.

A few years ago, after the last of several mishaps caused by the fey mixture of old age & power tools, my grandfather auctioned off all his tools.  It was a necessary move, one that would prolong my Grandpa's physical life, but was also the beginning of the deterioration of his ethos, his raison d'etre.

You see, my Grandpa was a carpenter.  He was other things as well:  Christian, husband, father, cotton farmer, and owner of the only coin-operated laundry in the small West Texas town they called home.  But first and foremost, he was a carpenter.  His greatest love was working with wood, creating lovely objects both large and small.  So ingrained was his love of wood that he would return from vacations with exotic woods he had acquired from all over the country.  He would be like a young boy, full of anticipation on Christmas morning, already envisioning what he might make from this piece of wood.

Grandpa is a man who likes to serve the Lord by helping others, and he found ways to use carpentry to do this as well, such as making wooden cross necklaces for the acolytes at his church.  After their retirement, Grandpa and Grandma traveled around the country, doing mission work for the church.  Grandpa took his tools and went from project to project, restoring and repairing churches, any place where the church had need of his skills.

But during his travels, the shop was still there, populated with the crucial needs of a fine woodworking craftsman.  I had a tumultuous relationship with this shop.  I loved going out there with Grandpa, and he taught me things, things no one had ever taught me before.  As a visiting grandson, however, I was often conscripted into cleaning up the shop.  Woodworking generates a lot of sawdust, and Grandpa had not invested in a sawdust collection system for his shop.  Unless you call a floor, a broom, a shop vac and a grandson a system.  It was a matter of certainty, regular as clockwork-- shortly after my arrival from out of town, I would be enjoined to clean up the shop.

I didn't always like it at the time, but upon later reflection as an adult, it was a fair trade.  Grandpa taught me the value of a job well done, and the joy of making something with my own hands.  I learned how to fun it was to touch a gouge tool to a piece of wood turning on the lathe, watching the wood shavings fly as you shaped that piece of wood.  There is something magical about having a tool in your hands that, properly applied, can make wood seem as soft as butter.

He taught me to tie knots, and build beautiful chessboards, and how to be safe in the shop.  He lectured me often on how to properly use tools and especially power tools, so I could do so with a lesser risk of injury.

And then one day, Grandpa forgot his own lessons.  While using a table saw, he did not use a "push stick", and his hand became caught in the blade.  Except by the grace of God, he would have died.  He and Grandma live in a small town far from a trauma center.  It is a long helicopter ride to the nearest hospital that can deal with such a devastating injury.  He lost several fingers on that hand, and the recovery took a long time.  He truly was lucky to be alive.

After that incident, Grandpa would try to work in the shop, but the loss of functionality in the hand led to more minor accidents, as well as a diminished craftsmanship.  The artistry of wood was still in his mind and soul, but his hands could no longer make his visions into reality.

His family worried about him.  We knew another major accident could be the death of him, and many of us, myself included, wondered whether he should be in the shop at all.  But deep in my heart, I knew that woodworking was my Grandpa's essential fire, and I feared the day that fire might be extinguished.

Grandpa eventually made the decision himself.  He arranged for one of his sons to auction off all of his tools, and my Grandpa ceased to be a carpenter.

I tried to purchase some of the tools, but they went for much more than I could afford to pay at the time.  In some ways, it is sad to see the implements that helped define a man's life sold to the highest bidder.  Such things are sometimes better served and respected by giving them away.  But this is a real world and full of real needs, real relationships, and real emotions, good and bad, and sometimes the most noble way is not at all the most practical way.

And so the auctioneer calls, the bidders bid, and when it is all over, they back up the pickups into the carport and they take my Grandpa's tools.

And now I stand here today, in the doorway of this shop, and the emptiness is almost frightening.  The table saw, the planer/joiner, the lathe, the bandsaw-- they are all gone.  There is no trace that they ever existed, save for my exacting memory of precisely where they stood.  I pause in contemplation, overcome with grief and pity for my Grandpa.  If this shop can bring forth such vibrant emotions in me, how deep they must drive into him, the master who ran this shop.  I was but his apprentice, and the emptiness of this shop fills me with great sadness.  I cannot truly empathize with the pain of a master carpenter whose shop and tools are gone, never to return.

I hurry to finish my errand, to close this door and return to the house.  But as I do so, I understood both life and my Grandpa a little better.

I understood why he is more withdrawn.  A life's love has been taken from him by the ravages of old age, and the thing that for him defined him as a man, he can no longer do.

I also understand that this is what life is.  We cannot escape the flow of the river, and while it may wind in unexpected ways, we cannot reverse the current that always pushes us closer to the day we meet our Lord.

All we can do is to ensure that we left the river a better place than we found it.  That we beautify it with our works, our words, and our relationships with our fellow travelers.

And as I close the door on the shop, shutting out that hateful emptiness, I know that my Grandpa has done that.  He is nearing the end of the river, but the man that he is, the master who used this shop, used his skills and his love to make the world a better place.

I think of all the children from his church who have a wooden cross of their own, beautifully crafted.  The churches and camps around the country that were renovated by his hand, and are still being used to serve and worship the Lord.  The beautiful pieces that I own and cherish.

The true gift he leaves me, though, are the lessons he taught me, many of them learned right here in this shop.  Like any two people, we have occasionally had our differences.  But I would count it as all joy if my grandsons someday would feel about me as I feel about my Grandpa, and those feelings were often fired and tempered, shaped and moulded, finished and refined, in my Grandpa's shop.

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