I’ve never understood grief. I’ve never been a part of it. It’s always been something that I’ve loathed; the sympathetic glances, the pats on the back, saying ‘I’m sorry for your loss’, or ‘I understand how you feel’. I’ve never wanted that. I’ve never had an excuse for that. But now I do.

My great-grandfather, Lionel Russell, was a wonderful person in a world with horrible people. His happiness and his lack of complaint is something that can rarely be found in an ninety year old man. He powered through the expectations that people had of him.
Sometimes, my grandfather would tell me stories. Beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking stories. Stories that are meant to last a lifetime and many more. The twinkle in his eye as he recalled my grandmother and the way it felt to be a father gives me hope.
My grandfather was born in 1923. I learned this when I sat with him at the Exploration Place in Prince George as he told me his stories. I left my younger brother to go downstairs and play in the children’s area as I helped my grandfather walk around and explore. My mother and father were working so I was taking care of my grandfather and little brother. He told me about the different cars that he has had. He held my hand as he talked, his tanned, liver spotted hand clutched against my smooth pale ones.
My grandfather was Argentinian. Not by blood, but by link. My great-grandmother, Irene Russell, was born in Argentina. She met my great-grandfather, Lionel, through her parents. They had six children, including my papa, Phil.
My grandfather, Lionel, told me about his life in Argentina and in Uruguay. My mother lived in Uruguay for a year and two months with my grandpa and grandma. She is fluent in Spanish and has no trace of a Canadian accent, just like my grandfather.
I’m one of twenty eight great-grandchildren, but still, my grandfather took time to visit us. He told me how my grandmother used to dote on me. How they fell in love with me when I was only two. That was their first visit. That visit, when we visited the Exploration Place, was his last.
It’s been about three and a half years since my grandmother died. She had cancer and thought she was too weak to go through chemotherapy, so she said no. My grandfather was heart-broken. He had been since she died. My mother told me a story about how my cousin, Lindsey, sat with my grandmother while she slept. My grandmother woke abruptly and told my cousin that she could see the angels. She could hear them singing.
My great-grandfather had dementia. He forgot things easily and sometimes got confused with where he was and what he was doing there. Sometimes he had mistaken me for my mother.
My mother went to Toronto when my grandmother was dying. She asked my grandma if she wanted anything. Anything in the world. My grandmother said a nice glass of red Argentinian wine. And there, sitting in the hospital, my family shared a last glass of wine with my grandmother.
Before my grandmother died, my grandfather kissed her on the lips and cried. My grandmother smiled. I wish it was easier to be human, because I know my grandfather was still hurting. I don’t know how he ever lived without her.
My mother cried in my arms that last visit. She said ‘this may be the last time you ever see him. Stay with him.’ And I did.
Seeing him that day was the last time I ever saw him in person, and I think it was the last time he recognized my face. And since he doesn’t remember me, I hope he at least remembered my grandmother.
My grandfather told me a story that day, with sadness in his eyes, about my grandmother. His voice was soft and his eyes were coated with un-shed tears as his thumb rubbed against my fingers.
The story that he told me was this: “Irene and I always decided to do things on a whim. So we were in Argentina and we decided to visit her father on the southern side of Argentina. He was living there and so we took a train. We decided to send a telegraph, because we didn’t have those phones that send a message. Not back then.
“We sent a telegraph, and you know, they charge you for each word, and we only had enough for two more words, but we couldn’t put from Lionel or from Irene, because it was the both  of us. So we merged our names together, you know? So we put Liorene. For Lionel and Irene. And it stuck.
“We’ve used that name for everything that we’ve set up. And I started an email account so I could talk to you and the others and I just couldn’t help it, so I put Liorene. Because that’s what we were called, you know? Liorene.”
He looked at me with unshed tears and a smile on his face as he stroked my hand. He put his pen back in his jacket that I had just used to write down my own email address on a piece of paper for him.
“Anyways,” he said, as he always does when he finishes a story. Just like me.
I hope he remembered it in the end. That there will always be a Liorene.