House Of Bricks

My partner Kate asked me the other day why I hadn't phoned my maternal grandparents. Their pet cat (a flame-point siamese named Taboo that used to be mine) had just been put to sleep, and my mum said I ought to call them. But I didn't. Which is weird because I adore them so much. I'm wondering why I never make an effort to stay in touch.

Maybe it's precisely because I idolize them that I find it hard to be close. After all, they've stayed together through thick and thin their entire lives, and I've had two failed marriages and a couple of nervous breakdowns, and only see my kids a few days a month. I feel like a massive disappointment, though they've never suggested anything of the sort.

My grandfather Dennis Warren (b.1928) worked his way as a bricklayer from the poor mining town of Shirebrook, Mansfield, UK, to become City Planner for Brampton, Ontario, Canada. He remembers as a child eating orange peels out of the gutters near wealthier folks homes after Christmas, as it was his only opportunity to experience the exotic fruit. He rebelled from his mining family and chose instead to pursue life as a mason. It was this fateful decision that kept him out of the fray of WWII, as he was conscripted to help re-build London after the Blitzkriegs. Dennis met my grandmother, Doreen Avril Rowlinson (b.1926) while re-bricking her bedroom. They were still teenagers, and have been together ever since.

Post-War London was a hard place for a young family to thrive. Dennis set off across the Atlantic, and a year later was able to send for his wife, mother-in-law (Emily), daughter (Sandra, my Mum), and son (Jonathan) to come join him after securing building work in Canada. He continued to live peacefully under the same roof as his in-law-- who we kids called 'Nanny'-- for all but the last year of her life. He took care of all her needs for three decades or so, even when my grandmother got homesick and returned to England alone for a year before coming to her senses.

Doreen worked at the newspaper while Dennis rose rapidly in his career due to impeachable work ethics, soon becoming City Planner of what was then, in the 1970's, the fastest growing city in Canada. My grandfather always shouldered any kind of labor like a happy Draft Horse, and has rarely uttered a complaint. He was typically stoic when his pacemaker failed and had to be replaced recently. My grandma is the strongest woman I ever met, never letting the diabetes that slowly destroyed her health keep her from the things she loved, and never having paid full price for anything in her life. She could talk a traffic cop into reducing the price of a ticket! She rules the Warren clan as undisputed Queen, and she could be ruthless, unforgiving, and downright mean if you got on her bad side. But she was an artist who taught the children to paint, press flowers, and see the faeries flickering in the fireplace.

The house they lived in when I was little, 42 Scott Street, was a gorgeous old mansion with a gigantic English garden, basement pub, rooftop greenhouse, haunted attic, loads of secret hiding places, and crystal doorknobs that cast tiny rainbows throughout the house at midday. Minnows and crayfish teamed in the creek across the street, ready to be caught in our little nets and spend the afternoon in mason jars before Dennis repatriated them. My grandpa had a 'Den' with an ancient electric fireplace, shortwave radio, stained-glass window of a pheasant, roll-top desk, leather E-Z boy, and large safe that housed his coin collection. Scott Street hosted their legendary cocktail parties. And seances. It was a magical house that is the setting for the best of my dreams.

You can see how easy it's been for me to build up these beloved family members into personal legends. I wish I were half the man my grandfather is, and I'm ashamed for him to ever see I'm not.

But I declare here and now that they are my heroes, in case I never manage to screw up the guts to tell them myself.