There was a time when I used my columns not only to highlight the impressive accomplishments of others, but as a simple journal. I wrote reflections on life around me as someone transitioning from adolescence into adulthood. I wrote about my life, my work, politics and the meaningful people around me. I covered my wife’s miscarriage, my health, the impact of marriage equality, family, and more.
While I’m planning on continuing my People of the Scioto Renaissance columns, because they’re submissions I deeply enjoy writing, I am going to begin printing more journal entries reflecting on life around me. I’ve always enjoyed running into people at the grocery store, or receiving an unsuspected message from a stranger on social media about how my honesty and vulnerability resonated with them and I’d like to explore this once again. They may be good, they may not, but we will take them one entry at a time and see where the ink leads.
I’ve changed my mind a few times in the past week about what I would write about first. I considered Superman, since he has had a huge impact on my life and the release of James Gunn’s new trailer makes the character relevant today. I’ve also considered writing about the city and recent inclement weather, because the men and women in the various service departments work hard in these hazardous moments to ensure water is running, trash is collected, and the city is functioning.
I especially considered this because my family has ties to this work, going two generations back before myself. I can recall winters of visiting my father on a weekend but barely seeing him, because he was called to work to jump into an icy hole for 8 plus hours to get water running again, coming home utterly exhausted in muddy, frozen pants, before getting a call to do it all over again.
However, I settled on going one generation back and starting with my grandfather, a little bit of my father, and how they both impact me today.
When I was born, my mother and father had a tremendous amount of respect for my maternal grandfather, Richard Pratt. He raised my mother as a biological daughter, despite having adopted her as an infant and being the only father she’s ever known. He treated my father like a son, even after my parents divorced. To thank him for the love he openly shared, my parents gave me his first and last name, my father giving up the opportunity of passing on his surname to his first-born son.
When I was seven, family circumstances led to me moving in with my grandfather and he raised me as a son as well, in a tag team with my grandmother.
Years into living with him, he moved a homeless family into our garage and let them find a safe place to exist in our backyard. The family had four members, and they cooked and slept and lived in our yard and garage, sharing our bathroom.
My grandfather cared for them as a second family, thinking of the children of the family as his own. I spent years with this second family thinking nothing of it. It seemed normal. Didn’t everyone have a homeless family living in their backyard? They needed help and it just seemed the human thing to do. Grandpa was capable of helping, so why not make their lives easier?
My grandfather had many loves in his life and those loves brought families and children that he considered his own, such as another daughter, my Aunt Lora, and her kids Kayla and Blake.
Family is what you make it and my grandfather, a man who didn’t pass his bloodline down himself, gave the gift of love and wicked humor and impressive storytelling to many. He made a family that had branches that stretched farther than any other tree I know. He gifted several with the Pratt name and treated them as though they were branches of his tree, because, to him they were.
He also spent most of his time in public parks and other public places, where he always kept plenty of small bills on hand to give to the homeless and those in need. He didn’t just give them money to go away, but he would invite them to sit with them where he would learn about their lives and hear about some of the hardest struggles those in addiction and homelessness deal with today. He loved stories and people and always wanted to help those with sad chapters.
Last year was incredibly hard for me and my family. My wife experienced much personal loss, professionally and personally. It was hard watching unfair circumstances, and the meanness of others, impact her in many ways. My mother had the fight of her life as she received a cancer diagnosis. My stepfather, if he’ll forgive me for calling him that, was left healing from his own recent health battles and caring diligently for my mother without ever dropping the ball once. My grandmother had a health scare that worried us all about her longevity, which she still deals with healing from today. I had nearly every appliance break in my kitchen, despite them being newer. We had car breakdowns. My father had substantial loss in the flash flood, with his home lying in the dip of the worst section of flooding when Helene hit. I had flooding in my basement, a broken sump pump, foundational issues with my house, and more. I had to take someone to court for stalking and harassment. We had a medical emergency with a pet that required surgery. An abandoned house across the street, owned by someone enjoying life in Florida, became infested with aggressive rats and shared the gift as an explosion of vermin with us until Ohio Prest Control saved the day—seriously, my wife and I were both bitten because of this woman’s neglect.
The worst of it came when we thought things couldn’t get worse. My grandpa broke a hip that hospitalized him for 99 days until he was sent home, still broken, and completely removed from a community that kept him thriving and dancing with friends at Whitey’s Music Barn or giving out five dollars to someone in need at Tracy Park in between reading a James Patterson book. Ultimately, he died September 21.
My grandfather would have been 80 last week and it was the first time in 32 years he didn’t call me to remind me that the sinks need to drip in this weather or to warn me to stay out of the snow and ice.
Celebrating the end of 2024 should have been a big thing for my family, marking the end of a chapter that took from us all. However, it was hard to do so with my grandfather’s birthday looming overhead. The first without him. The would be 80th celebration of a man who called so many his family. I
have also learned to stop challenging the years as though they can’t give anymore hardship, because they can.
While I’ve reflected on the loss of one father in 2024, I’ve considered the teachings of another, my biological father. He is a man I’ve struggled with over different times in my life to relate to, to sometimes even get along with. Sometimes, this has been because we are very similar. Others, it is because we are very different.
He is a man I have typically respected in all moments of my life, however. It was hard not to, witnessing those early daylight hour arrivals home after working doubles in icy waters so people who complain about the city’s services can have the safe water they expect.
I think of a man who, in harder times, sold personal property that brought him joy so that his children wouldn’t go without. I see a man who is hard are stone, but a stone you can still squeeze blood from because he refuses to ultimately shed his humanity and optimism and love of others. A man who impressed upon his children the importance of hard work and earning your way in life, but deep down is compassionate for others.
So, while I have a lot to miss and feel sorry for in 2024, I’m entering 2025 thinking of lessons from my father. Both fathers, really.
My basement is dry, my father’s house still stands, my grandmother and mother are still with us, my broken things are replaced, my wife has found new opportunity and will again if something goes wrong. I didn’t lose my grandfather, because the wild stories he told and the good he did cannot be lost until I, myself, and those he helped, are gone and no longer need those stories for inspiration.
I will continue jumping into the icy, muddy holes and fix the water breaks of life and walk off the cold because that is what you do.
At this point, I almost feel as though this column has become a ramble of a collection of topics. In a way, it is true, because, while determined to find peace and a stronger footing, I am still a little aimless.
The point of my writing this, however, is that I want to impress upon others the importance of taking that first step. Taking that second step. Taking that third step. They may be hard, life may push you down, but you keep stepping and you ensure you aren’t taking one on someone else’s back to keep going. When my father’s house was flooded, he cared for his neighbors and helped them clean up first. When the water first rushed in, he took to the water to help people even though he is not a strong swimmer.
This is important, because I’ve noticed more and more struggles and strife in the world lately. I’m not sure if it is just me fully becoming an independent adult who has experienced 15 years of this life or if the world truly is getting harder. Prices are high on everything from eggs to homes, systems are built to make life harder for some, wages are not meeting the rise of inflation, a pandemic crippled us for years, disastrous weather has burned and bashed and flooded.
But my father’s taught me the importance of hard work and surviving for those around you and sharing that kindness with others, not letting the bad overshadow the good, and telling a joke instead of wallowing in the loss.
So, I step into 2025 as someone ready to work beyond that. I do so with my father’s teachings and his ongoing help at my side. I do so with my grandfather’s life lessons reminding me to get up. I do so looking out for people around me who need a hand in taking that fourth step without a stumble.
I ask that you do the same. If you even made it this far into my column. If my editor, Eden, didn’t just throw this whole 1,800-word reentry into personal columns in the trash.
Give five dollars to someone in need but stop long enough to get their name and ask how their day is going to remind them they are a person. Step into an icy hole or rush into flood water to help someone else. The actions of my fathers have been like footprints in sand before me that I can navigate and, as my grandfather had done for countless people, I invite you into my life and follow these steps.
If we all walk into 2025 together, we only fall without rise if we all fall together.