Grandpa Constantin was, to me, the perfect parental figure.
To this day, I haven’t found a single fault in him as a grandfather. He loved me tirelessly. He carried me on his shoulders. He took me on walks through the forest. He took me to his hometown, in a horse-drawn carriage. It was also he, who took me to the seaside every year. The sound of the waves, the sunrise on the water, the strolls along the beach—he etched them all into my soul.
He also gave me the push toward a better future. He stuffed the hard-earned mining money into my pocket and sent me off. I was 14 years old.
From that point on, whenever I visited home, he would write down my new address on a scrap of paper with his carpenter’s pencil. He would ask how he could get to me from the central station. He’d note the bus number, transfer points, lefts and rights—all of it. Every time I moved addresses, cities, or countries, he adjusted and tucked the little treasure under his old TV box. “One day, I’ll surprise you,” he’d say.
The one who was surprised was me.
One day, during my lunch break at work, I found a text message from a relative: “Allie, I think you should know that your Grandpa passed away last night.”
A chasm opened beneath me, and I fell endlessly.
The world outside blurred; silhouettes moved and spoke in muffled tones, their concern barely reaching me.
I was like a peculiar museum piece—an exhibit of frozen grief.
I only emerged for a moment, when I heard the earth thudding on the wooden coffin. The sound was hollow, a drumbeat of pain and finality.
Grandpa wasn’t there.
A primal scream tore out of me unbidden, and my fists, uncontrollable, began pounding the gravediggers with fury. But neither my blows, nor clinging to the cross, nor screaming at the heavens, nor collapsing could bring back the man who had been my anchor of unconditional love.
When we returned from the funeral, I sat on his bed, in the spot where he would sit and look out the window to see us coming from afar to visit him. It was as if I could still see him there. In his soft voice, he was talking about the wartime. As a child, in order to save his life, his mother put him on the “hunger train”. His struggle for survival, seemed like an adventure to us, grandchildren.
I condemned myself in silence.
On the chair beside his bed, which served as a nightstand, there was an open magazine. His carpenter’s pencil – a bookmark. The page stared back at me with a bold headline: “Flowers for Grandpa.” It was an article about a girl who had been away from home for many years. She only returned when her grandfather died, to place flowers on his grave.
I was overwhelmed by a flood of flashbacks.
Entire scenes replayed in my mind—some I thought I had forgotten.
I remembered how, a couple of years back, I had bought him a pair of Ugg boots from Australia. He was always complaining about the cold, and I wanted to give him something to keep him warm. But when I found them, they were unused, perfectly preserved, as if he thought they were too valuable, too precious to wear. That was him—the man who handled his love with care but never consumed it for himself.
I saw glimpses of a freezing winter when I was six. He walked miles to take me to the winter festival. I didn’t want to go. I preferred sledding with my siblings. I would give anything now to endure that cold with him, to walk beside him, my tiny hand tightly held in his.
These memories came out of nowhere, in waves, isolating me momentarily from the present. Once they passed, I realised how deeply they had etched him—and his lessons on love—into me.
In the days that followed, I looked around in shock. The world had the audacity to keep turning, the sun still rose and set, people laughed and loved and hated, as if nothing had happened.
Only my universe had marked his absence.
The void he left behind was unbearable. I searched for any sign that he hadn’t vanished completely. All I found was perfect silence.
One day, a friend asked me about Grandpa—what he was like, what he loved, and the kind of man he was. I started talking, hesitant, tears rolling down my cheeks. He handed me a box of tissues and said, “Don’t you see? Everything you’re saying about him, also describes you!”
That’s when I found him again, and I’ve been finding him ever since.
At every milestone in my life, I’ve instinctively reached for my phone to call and share it with him.
Then I started lifting my hand toward the sky.
When I started writing this story, I wanted to say something different, but the pen led me here again.
I wanted to say that Grandpa was born on January 10. But due to some bureaucratic mix-up of the times, he was officially registered on January 13.
Whenever I said, “Happy birthday, Grandpa,” he’d reply, “Happy birthday, Grandpa!”
When I became pregnant with my first child, the doctors estimated his due date as January 13.I started telling my close ones that I would give birth naturally on January 10. Of course, I was ridiculed. For a first child, typically born a bit later than expected, the odds were slim. People told me it wasn’t up to me and that I couldn’t control such things.
“As God wills,” they said.
God indulged me.
My Constantin was born naturally on January 10, ten years ago today.
Happy birthday, my Constantins!
Happy birthday, Grandpa!