Chapter 17 - GRANDPA WASN’T PERFECT
I read Grandpa’s archives.
He was no saint.
Important.
He loved hierarchy in business more than I expected.
He could be controlling.
He wrote letters telling adult relatives where they should live.
He once withheld a discretionary loan because a nephew refused to finish college.
Not everything aged well.
Then later letters changed.
He had learned.
Partly through conflict with Lucienne.
One note:
I spent too much of my life confusing provision with authority.
That line could have described the whole family.
Another:
Children should learn to serve because everyone should know service, including whoever imagines himself the leader.
There.
Reciprocity.
Lucienne kept half the sentence.
Service.
Ignored the rest.
Another:
If a family needs a throne, it has already failed.
I thought of the miniature chair.
Then laughed.
Grandpa had not created a perfect trust.
No legal document can parent a family.
He created guardrails.
Lucienne drove into them anyway.
May you like
Eventually they held.
That was enough.
