Just Me and God
My grandfather passed away two weeks ago at the age of 87. He was a good husband, father, grandfather, friend, and Marine. The man lived with enough zeal to rival a small country, and he had purpose until the day he passed away. Literally.
On the day he passed away, he was going to be picked up in a limo to be a distinguished guest for a lecture at his((and my)) high school, St. Charles Preparatory, in Columbus, Ohio. It was a big deal for him, and he was excited for it.
He published a book several months before he passed away, Terrorist Quest for Power((His editor was 92… which I think is equally great and hysterical.)), and he had sold “a few hundred copies” between launch day and when I last spoke to him, which was two days before he passed.
Not bad for 87.
He was in the process of writing is autobiography. I knew this because he had read me some of the beginning of it. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the style in which he was writing the autobiography (it seemed like more historical fiction to me), but I was happy he had purpose. For example, Chapter 1 began before he was born, with a conversation his parents, Michael and Alice Ryan, were having about what they would name their yet-to-be-born child.
My grandfather was named Tom. His father was named Michael, and Michael’s father was named Michael, but went by Mike. From earliest to most recent, Mike’s son was Michael who had a son Tom who had a son Tom, who’s my dad, who had me.
At the calling hours, there was, of course, lots of reminiscing about my grandfather. I found myself sharing the same story, over and over again, to everyone. The story is about my last conversation with my grandfather, which I thought perfectly exemplified his and my relationship. I am always impish, poking fun, and trying to start trouble. He was always fighting back, trying to put me in my place. We had a good time together.
Below is the story I told, written as I told it.
Earlier this week, I was watching Pretend It’s a City on Netflix. The show is essentially Fran Lebowitz, a humorist and comedy writer who’s absolutely hysterical, and one of her best friends, Martin Scorsese, hanging out. In the final episode, Fran asked Martin about his family coming over to the United States from Italy. I realized I didn’t know how my family came over from Ireland, and so the next day I called my grandfather, and I asked him to tell me the story of how we came to the United States.
He told me the whole story of how we came over and how the Egan and the Ryan families became one family((The funeral home we were at is called “Egan Ryan Funeral Services”. Distant cousins own the funeral home. When my grandfather was younger, he worked there. He also worked as an ambulance driver I’m unsure if he did both at the same time. That would be a big conflict of interest. Poor ambulance driving could be reframed as “customer acquisition” for the funeral home. He would’ve liked that joke. Not laugh out loud funny, but chuckling funny. In all seriousness, he once helped a woman deliver a child in the ambulance. He was really proud of that story.)), and it was a really great story.
I asked my grandfather “Who all knows this story?”
His response? “Me and God.”
I said “Grandpa, you should really write that story down.”
He said “I will, but I’m writing my autobiography first. I’ll write that story down after. Maybe it will go in my autobiography.”
I told him, “Grandpa, you weren’t alive for that. It shouldn’t go in your autobiography, it should go in the preface.”
He and I bickered for 4 or 5 minutes about where it would go in the book and when it would be written into the book. In the end, he tried to make my idea of putting it in the preface his idea, which was classic Tom Ryan, and I asked him how long the book would be.
“About five or six hundred pages, but a lot of them will be pictures.”
I asked my grandfather, “Well, how many pages have you written?”
“About 30 or 40.”((I chuckled as I typed this. That was also a common theme between he and I. We both shared a characteristic of taking on massive undertakings, making very little progress, and truly believing that everything is under control.))
I told my grandfather “Well, you better get writing big guy!”
He asked me “Evan, why are you in such a rush to get me to write this down?”
I said, “Grandpa, because you could die!”((Everyone under age 60 thought this was insensitive and over the line. Everyone over age 60 had huge laughs that my grandfather would’ve loved. That’s why I said that to him. While it was true, I knew it would get his goat. Something new to bicker about.))
He exclaimed “OH MY GOSH!((He was thrilled I made that joke. He was doing his trademark exclamatory yell-laughing. When I would mimic it, people understood his excitement to put me in my place immediately.)) Evan, God has way too many things to worry about, and he does not want the hassle of dealing with me. Sometime I will die, but God’s a bit busy and he can’t handle me coming up there. Besides, Princess Grace((His 13 year old yorkie with no teeth and thinning hair and is happy in her new home))is still around, and she needs me to take care of her!”
Then he said “Evan, I can’t talk with you about this right now. I have people here, I gotta go, bye.”
He passed away two days later.
I probably told this story 40 or 50 times. Everyone at the calling hours responded the same way.
“Wow, Evan, that’s really great you called him and got the story.”
We’d make a little more small talk, and then I’d move on to talking with other people. I’d tell this story, the new people would respond by saying it’s great I called him, we’d catch up for a few minutes, and I’d move on. It was almost like clockwork.
Until one person,((Aunt Melody)) noticed, during my retelling of the story of our final phone call, that my grandfather made a statement that was incorrect.
“Who else knows the story?“
“Just me and God.”
He forgot that he had just told me. For two days, the only people who knew the story weren’t “just me and God.”
In 1838, Pat Egan came over from Ireland because of the potato famine. He settled in Ohio.
Pat C. Ryan (who went by “P.C.”) came over along with another family called the Cody family. The Cody family, at the time had several children, including a twelve year old daughter. They became friends on the boat.
On their journey over, the sailors and crew of the boat got drunk, and the boat crashed into land near Boston. Everyone ended up being okay, and P.C. headed to San Francisco to go try to find gold. When he got there, he realized how much of a mess it was and made his way back toward the midwest, but instead of leaving the way he came, he journeyed south, through Texas and Louisiana, and made his way up the Mississippi River.
As P.C. was going up the Mississippi River, a boat was sinking, and a woman was crying for help. P.C. jumped in the water, brought the woman into his boat, and took her to safety. She later contacted him and sent him a prize tea set as a thank you for saving her. It was General William Sherman’s wife((Ellen Ewing Sherman)). I fought for the tea set when it was being distributed, but it was lost.
P.C. made his way back to Ohio where he had four children with his wife, but his wife passed away while giving birth. He fell into a depression, and made his way to Zanesville, Ohio, with his children where he reconnected with the Cody family. At that time, the girl who was 12 when they came over on the boat was in her early 20s. Her name was Alice. Alice and P.C. got married, and they had four children together, one of whom was named Mike.((My grandfather’s grandfather))
Tom Ryan, as told to his grandson over the phone
You can read my grandfather’s obituary here.