Editor’s note
One of my earliest memories of my grandfather is of a visit to him when I was very small, when he still lived in Maryland. I remember a greenhouse attached to his house. I remember going through a door, maybe out of the basement, into the light of that greenhouse. There were tiers and shelves of plants in that greenhouse that seemed to go from the floor to the sky.
But what I remember clearest is the smell. It was a smell of earth and life and vibrancy. A wet smell, like being deep in the woods after a heavy rain.
I don’t know what he grew in there. Part of me hopes that it was all flowers, just like his father hoped to have. But I imagine his practical side won out in the end — maybe because he heard his mother’s voice in his head, admonishing him not to waste space on flowers, space that could be used to grow real food to nourish his family.
When he moved back to Massachusetts and bought a ranch house not far from us, he didn’t have a greenhouse — at least not one that I can remember. He had land instead and planted an enormous garden full of every kind of vegetable you could think of. He had acres of apple trees far in the backyard. He had a bramble patch where he let the raspberries and blackberries — invasive plants that threaten to overtake anything they grow near — run wild in their confined space. My mother harvested vegetables from that garden, both to eat right away and to put up in glass jars. She used to spend long afternoons at the bramble patch picking berries to bring home to jam. When I was little, I loved to help pick those raspberries and blackberries. I’m certain most of what I picked ended up in my mouth and not in the pail.
My grandfather always wore a certain set of clothes when he worked outside — in his garden or mowing the lawn. Those clothes always smelled like a mixture of oil from the machines, cut grass from the yard, dirt from the garden, and sweat from his labors. Remembering that smell triggers a vision of my grandfather smiling from atop his lawnmower, having just seen us pull into the driveway. Nothing seemed to make him happier than spending time with his grandkids–Laura and me from across town, Lisa, Daniel, and Robert from further afield in West Virginia. It could be a trick of my memory, but he never seemed to be in a rush. Never seemed to have anything but time for us. Never seemed to lose his patience with us, no matter how much losing patience might have been warranted.
The biggest regret of my youth is not having the same patience with him. When I was a teenager, he developed Parkinson’s, and I watched as one of the smartest men I knew retreated into himself — locked in a body that wouldn’t do as he wanted, a mind dulled by disease. I could have spent more time with him in his final years. Even though I was no longer living in the same town, I was still only an hour away. If I’m being kind with myself, I recognize how hard it was for me to watch this man I loved so deeply turn into someone else, through no fault of his own and with no way to stop that progression. My taking up these stories is a form of atonement for that sin of my youth.
Memory deceives. We remember the things we want to remember, sometimes the things we do not, but memories are just one perspective — changed by time, colored by experience, and objectively false in the strictest sense. But they are also what keeps those we have lost alive: collections of stories altered by time but still true and dear and sacred in our hearts.
The pages that follow are my grandfather’s memories and stories, as told to my mother Diane in the year before his death. Like my own memories and stories, I don’t know what’s true, what’s misremembered, or what’s been omitted because of time, propriety, or forgetfulness. But memories are real to the holder and stories real to the teller, and so I’ve tried to stay faithful to what my grandfather shared. I’ve tried to let his voice shine through. Tried to resist adding details and emotions that he didn’t share. Tried to let the stories stand for themselves.
With that said, I’ve reordered some lines, expanded on some scenes, and corrected some verifiable facts. The stories are my grandfather’s, and if you find value in any of them, credit is due to him alone. The hard work of collecting these stories was my mother’s, and any thanks for capturing them for posterity is due to her alone. Any errors, omissions, or poor writing are mine alone.
Matthew Libbey
Moreland Hills, OH
February 2026