This morning, before putting on the coffee or getting started with the day, I found myself furiously searching for my grandfather's watch. About five years ago, my aunt, knowing how much I looked up to and respected my grandfather, sent me the watch that he wore for many years, leading up to his passing. It's one of those watches that starts up when it wraps around your wrist. Take it off and it stops. My grandfather was a hilarious, hard-working and gentle man. I have pictures of him all over my apartment, many taken throughout the Brooklyn neighborhood where he raised my mother and two aunts. Given my adoration for him, it's probably a surprise that he passed away when I was only four, in 1977. I only vaguely even remember meeting him, but it's everything I've learned since that has had such an impact on my life. Despite growing up in a broken home, there was an enormous amount of love for him from both sides. He was my mother's father, but my father still wells up when his name enters the conversation. They used to go to the track in New York together, an event that was an incredible thrill for my grandfather, notwithstanding the fact that he'd never wager more than two bucks. My father considers him the funniest man he's ever met. He worked for the same company for most of his life, made a decent wage and was by my grandmother's side until the day he died. He was a simple man, but a man of immense character, humor and civility.
It didn't take long for me to understand what prompted me to tear my apartment apart in search of this memory of him. I wanted to somehow remember what it was like to be him, during the time that he lived. He was an avid reader of Faulkner and had a keen interest in politics, once recording a Richard Nixon skit that, to this day, may be the funniest impersonation I've ever heard. As I reflected on him, I began to consider where we are today. I thought of Obama's speech last night and the embarrassing displays of disrespect throughout that room. And then I thought of how we conduct ourselves today. I thought of Twitter, Facebook and texting and the quick erosion of patience, consideration and decency. Board a bus and it's nearly impossible to go three blocks without a fellow passenger yelling in your ear over his or her cell phone. Hold a door open for a fellow citizen and they're likely to swiftly plow past you while pummeling their blackberry keyboard.
The last few minutes of our president's speech last night hit me. When he said, "I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history's test. Because that is who we are. That is our calling. That is our character." For me, those words were about much more than health care reform; they were about a nation and people who desperately need to remember the essence of who we are and what our time allows. Those words reminded me of my grandfather, Gerry Lane, and everything his legacy has attempted to instill in me.