I stayed up all night working out this speech, trying to
find the right words to say,
But you know what?
To hell with it, I’ll just speak from the heart.
It really does make my heart warm to see us all gathered
here to pay our respects to grandpa
Indeed I’m sure that not one of you here have no fond
memories of him.
Looking out at all of you it is difficult not to see that
Grandpa has left quite a legacy, a legacy that we are now
the caretakers off.
For those of us who knew him well, grandpa was one of
depth: Depth of soul, depth of heart, and of spirit.
He was also quite the storyteller and I know some of you
remember his tales quite well.
Coming from very humble beginnings, Grandpa was always
quick to let us know how hard life was back then, for a young pothole. From being
nothing more than a mere crack in a time when Government used to build ‘good
road’, ‘serious road’ and not ‘dem fly by
night ting dey patching now’ as he would often say.
Grandpa was a fighter. Nourished by the elements and the occasional
grass roots and bad drivers grandpa grew from a tiny crack in the bend to the
legend he is now. Although humble by nature we all knew he took pride in his
size, occupying two thirds of the road, no mean feat that, and definitely
something that WE can be proud of as well and aspire to.
Grandpa by no means had an easy life, his was a life
etched with hardship, however, Grandpa was one of enduring spirit and great
faith; A survivor. Many times he was filled in, with rocks, soil, gravel and
even cement! But he always believed in a higher power and no matter how long it
took grandpa came back like a champ. No greater example of this than the Great
War of Election 1994, when the then Government in a bid to win votes sent out
their Public Works soldiers to completely rebuild the roads. Soldiers whom we’ve
had a long, bittersweet relationship with since you could never tell if they’re
coming to dig up the road and help increase our population or persecute us with
asphalt and rocks. It was a dark time for our kind and we lost a lot of good
pot holes yet even through this Grandpa fought and survived.
Although Grandpa often came across as the stern silent
type, he was also quite the trickster with a wicked sense of humour. In his
younger days he would often use the angle of sunlight to trick drivers into
thinking he moved, laughing as they swerved precariously. He kept a tally of
how many axels and rims he broke in his heyday and how many tires he ripped. He
always joked that he was an unappreciated necessity to the economy and that he
kept the mechanics and car dealers in business. I remember one of his favourite
jokes, it was one he played every time there was a heavy shower, he’d play as
if he was shallower than he really was, luring the unwary into his depths.
There was once not too long ago he caught the whole front end of a rental, it
was a tourist, ‘you have to give dem di
Antiguan welcome man’ he would tell us jokingly.
However you saw him, an activist, a joker, a family pot
hole, grandpa will forever live on, he has blazed the trail and we must do him
the honour of doing no less than he. So as Public Works buries him beneath
concrete, asphalt and the steam roller, we know that Grandpa shall live on. The
Grandest of us all.
Rest In Peace Gramps.
Glen Toussaint 2016©
