THE GRANDFATHER
A True Story
I have come to understand that words can be used not only for simple descriptions or for a claim of ownership, but as a foretaste of the soul. I have long-held an unconscious belief that the world of humans is perfectible under specific conditions.
In that light I want to share this story with you. A true Latvian story told to me by a Latvian nurse who had previously worked in emergency wards in her country.
An old but strong grandfather of his beloved 15 year old granddaughter was told by her mother, his daughter, that her child, his granddaughter, had been raped by a man in their area.
As a young man the grandfather had fought in World War Two. He was still wilful and strong. He said the man must be arrested and went to his police friends in the bar to ask if they had heard anything. They said they knew who it was but had to wait for the granddaughter to confirm it was that man.
The granddaughter did confirm it but hours later committed suicide. The grandfather roared and demanded the police arrest the man. They said that without the granddaughter in court they would never gain a conviction.
The grandfather, having fought with homemade weapons against the Nazis, constructed a Molotov Cocktail in an empty wine bottle and stomped off to the guilty man’s house. Gripping the bottle, ready to toss, he pounded on the door. A child he knew, wearing a princesses’ tiara, pulled open the door, smiled at the grandfather and asked him to come in to celebrate her birthday.
The grandfather looked into the house and saw the guilty man dancing with a young woman amongst many other people. He looked again at the child, staggered back from the door, struck by a pain through his back and neck.
His rage for revenge and his guilt over the possibility of hurting innocent people had torn his heart apart. He dropped to his knees, cradled the bottle to make sure it was safe, laid down and died.
I believe this was the nurse’s grandfather.
Creativity is about the transformation of passion into activity, into making or in the case of the grandfather, about doing things which are critical, hopeful, filled with beauty and wonder and always enhancing what it is to be human. Sometimes these stories are complex, even contradictory, but none the less filled with truths. It is often in the complexity where the poetry is to be found.