Getting to know a grandfather, even after his death

Today, the weather is good for the first time in a long time. Come walk with me, down to the Washington Harbor. Past the shop windows of shiny, plastic women wearing soft things and summer things and silver things, who nod at you as you go by. Through the purr of early-morning breakfast conversations, of people thumbing sheets of newspaper, of plates making music with forks, and forks with knives, and teacups with saucers. Across the way from the slowing rhythm of the jogger, who sighs in relief upon pulling up to a traffic light, his human gas tank three-quarters empty. And into the early spring breeze, the wooded deck, the girls in sundresses, and the chubby-limbed cherubs that laugh and cry and run amok.
I come here for the water, vast and wide, for the view of everything on the other end—the Kennedy Center, the Washington Monument, the Key Bridge, for the little birds and the big boats, for the solitude in the winter, and the people watching in the summer. But most of all, I come here for my muse—Captain M.J. Sayeed, my grandfather.
He was a mercantile sailor, and I imagine him in his navy blue uniform and golden buttons, or more casually, in a button-down and a beret. I imagine him on a boat, much bigger even than these ones, with a body of water to which one can find no end. I can’t say I ever really knew him.
All I know is that he liked to tell stories, that he liked to write letters, and that he read assiduously. I always imagined him as thin and not very tall, and a little bit quiet. This is why I like him—I know so little about him, and yet enough for me to project onto him, to imagine everything else about him, to cast and recast him, until he becomes someone whom I do know—a third real, and two-thirds imaginary.
Sometimes he is my yes-man, sometimes he is my conscience, sometimes he is my confidante, and sometimes (I imagine) he is just there, not doing much at all, but still company. I suppose I am a little old for an imaginary friend, but since he wasn’t always quite so invisible, perhaps we can make exceptions.
Everyone else in my family seems to be blessed with a rather well-developed sixth-sense which I simply don’t have, and probably never will.
My mother, my aunts, and my cousins literally feel him, see him, and dream of him—perhaps not all the time, but now and again. I knew I could never see him or feel him—my sixth sense is horribly underdeveloped. But I hoped, at least, to dream of him. That still hasn’t happened.
While their dreams seem to have been filled with vivid imagery, meticulously developed symbols, and real significance, I continue to dream of genies and wasted summer days, and occasionally, to have nightmares about Chemistry exams and the “Georgetown Cuddler.” And yet, this doesn’t seem to bother me so much anymore. In never having known much about him, and never having been close to him during his life, I have gained the ability to find him, in different ways, after his death.
All people have an immeasurable presence on this earth—everyone means something to someone else, everyone hustles, and bustles, and does some work, good or bad, in this whirling world. Some people, though, have a presence that grows exponentially with each moment that they are gone, leaving a tangible mark amongst the living. A presence that does not linger, or hover, or fade in and out, but that stands firm—a legacy. And that is the measure of a man.
The water is darker now, the sun less generous, the breeze thicker. Walk back to campus with me. Past the vacant, glass buildings with “Prime Realty” banners around their waists, where you nod at yourself as you go. Past the art gallery, quiet and colorful, with an open door, and the beat of heels on a wooden floor. Across the way from the man, seated on the sidewalk with a plastic cup and an extended arm, and from the lazy, golden dog stretched at the foot of an antique shop. And into the sound of Georgetown’s ringing bells, that mark the afternoon hour.