Ten years after my grandfather passed away, I decided to send him an email on the other side...
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Story performed by: Aaron Calafato
Audio Production: Ken Wendt
Original Art: Pete Whitehead
Additional Vocals: Cori Birce
Emailstotheotherside.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
Hey, everybody. It's Aaron. The story you're about to hear is special to me for a couple of reasons. One, it's about my grandpa, Joe, my father's father. I've told other stories about his life and even stories regarding after he's passed away. But this story you're about to hear takes place about 4-5 months before he died.
I've told a lot of stories about my grandparents, all of them because I was close with all of them in some regard, but my relationship with grandpa, Joe, was special and strong, so there's these heartstrings I have for this one.
In fact, we actually released a version of this story way back when, Season 1, Episode 6, but it was early on in the podcast. I think what we actually ended up releasing was a recording that I did on a crappy cell phone. It was one of the first stories, I think, I ever recorded because I was just experimenting trying to figure out how to do this podcast thing, and so I did it in the hallway of this apartment I was going to live, on this phone. So the quality of the recording wasn't great. Even though it was organic and raw, Cori has encouraged me to do this because this is one of her favorite stories.
So we figured we would revamp this by having me; one, rerecord the story, retell it and capture it. But also what I've done is, I've added other elements to it that aren't in that original version. In fact, things that I reveal in what you're about to hear, that I didn't in the previous one either. I think overall it's just a stronger narrative. Besides the revamp, we've also retitled it, and it's called Emails to the Other side. I hope you enjoy.
My grandfather, Joe, died about 11 years ago. Wow. That doesn't even seem real. It went by so fast. But I clearly remember how sudden it was. He fell and he hit his head and he bled out, essentially. It was an accident.
When he got to the hospital, it was too late. He was on blood thinners and his brain swelled up and it was just very quick. He was in his mid 80s. I don't know, when you're in your mid to late 80s, how healthy you can be towards the end of your life. But I know that he had a pretty decent quality of life. He could have lived another 5-10 more years. But it was his time and he was gone. That absence was really hard for me because of how close we were. I miss him terribly to this day.
A couple of months ago, I'm on my email, my Gmail account, and I'm sending out personal emails and work emails, and I looked at the bottom left-hand portion of the screen and there's this option where you can chat with people, video chat, Google Hangout or whatever they do now, and his name popped up.
It was the weirdest experience seeing his name pop up because I had never seen it do that before. It didn't say that he was online or active or anything like that. It was just his name that appeared there and it was his email. I had to smile because I remember how hard it was for him to set up this email.
About five months before he passed, he got into this technology gig and he wanted to adapt and he was determined to learn how to use email. He was so gung-ho about this. He bought a tablet. I mean, the dude went all in. He buys a tablet, he's trying to figure out Twitter and Facebook, and he wanted a Gmail account so we could stay connected and so he could connect with his extended family.
He tried so hard, but he got very frustrated. I would give him very simple instructions and he'd call me all the time and say, "I can't figure this goddamn thing out. What's going on with Facebook and what's with my email and what's with the spam and the inbox and all this kind of stuff?"
It was a very interesting experience for me because, again, these five months before he passed, we were doing this all the time. Not just on the phone, but I would go over to his house and he would want me to tutor him.
It was a bit frustrating for me, honestly, teaching someone, having patience, especially someone who doesn't know this kind of stuff, and had waited so late to try to adapt. He was stubborn, but it was a connective experience for us. It was important because it gave us an excuse to talk and to bullshit and to chat during an interesting period of both of our lives, in a way, because while I'm still a relatively young man, I was a much younger man then and I was starting my life, so to speak. He, he was towards the end of his life.
And we had this window of time to experience that together, being on different sides of that continuum of life. But it was all facilitated by his desire to continue to live, and not just continue to live, but to try and adapt and to try new things even when he didn't have to.
I know now, I'm in my late 30s, and I'm starting to notice I'm getting closed off sometimes to ideas, or I'm getting stuck in my ways. When I notice that about myself, I try to break that habit right away even if it's hard because I don't want to get old. Not just physically old, but old in the mind.
And I think he noticed that, too, about himself, that there was this difference between getting older in the body and older in the mind and he didn't want that either. That effort he made at the end of his life is something I will always admire about him.
During this time he also revealed something to me that I haven't really talked about. He, my grandfather, was a practicing Catholic, but he was reading a book called Seth Speaks. He was quiet about this because it was more of a metaphysical kind of book. It was about this woman who apparently channeled this entity from another dimension, and this entity shared really an optimistic beautiful view of how complex layers of experience and consciousness are across the paradigms of the universe. It was this very mind-bending book, but for some reason this really spoke to him. And he told me that. He said, "Aaron, for some reason I'm really connecting with this." He was trying to wrestle that with his faith, and I think he found a way to pair the two. But he couldn't deny that this book really meant something to him, because he said, "Aaron, I feel like I was born old." Again, "Not old in the mind," he said, "But that I've just been here for a long time and maybe many times. I feel this so strongly." He said.
He wanted me to read the book, and so I did. While I was finishing the book, we were finishing the tutoring for his Gmail and we finally got his email set up for the first time. This was a big deal because he could never remember his password and even when he did, he would try to write it down. It was surrounded by all kinds of other scribbled passwords so it was never easy. But a month before he passed away, we finally did it. We had dialogues back and forth via email with each other.
So coming full circle, when I saw his name pop up on my Gmail contact list, I started looking at our email history and reading our chats. When I do this, for a moment, I forget that he's gone from this earth. Recently, I thought about what he told me about this Seth Speaks book, and it made me wonder, maybe, he's not as far away from me as I thought, so I decided to email him even though he's passed on. I just clicked his contact and I sent him a message. Is that weird?
I mean, I thought just maybe instead of praying or in addition to it, I could email him. He worked so hard. We worked so hard to set up that email address. I didn't want it to go to waste.
I know he can't write back, or at least he hasn't, but somewhere in cyberspace, in heaven, in another dimension, maybe he's logging into it, maybe he remembers his password, and maybe he's reading my emails that I've been sending him. I'm not going to lie, I still check my email every morning and I have a very small hope that I might get a response back from him. If I ever do get one, I wonder what he'd say.
7 Minute Story Season 2 is made possible by Fishbowl.
Yes, it is, Cori.
We're not just saying that. Aaron, can you tell everyone a little bit about what you've been doing on Fishbowl?
I've been doing the Fishbowl live talks about storytelling and podcasting. It's been great
I may or may not jump in and occasionally interrupt him and try and redirect him. It's really fun and probably a little annoying for him, but I also have been using Fishbowl for queer questions that I have that I would maybe be a little embarrassed to ask if people knew who I was.
Yeah. It's the anonymity factor.
It's so awesome to be able to just confidently ask the question about something that I should probably know or that someone assumes that I know and get the right answer.
That's the thing. Posting, sharing, participating in the conversation anonymously in these bowls, it's unlike any other networking app. Because it's freedom. When you post, you don't have to water down your comments for fear of getting fired. It's really empowering and we'd love if you join us there.
Absolutely. To do that, go to joinfishbowl.com/7ms. That's joinfishbowl.com/7ms and download the free app today. 7 Minute Stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Audio production by Ken Wendt.
You can connect with Ken or inquire about his audio production services at media216.com. Original artwork by Pete Whitehead. Find out more about Pete's work at petewhitehead.com. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen podcasts. Lastly, I'm, Cori Birce. Make sure to tune in next week for another story.
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