A Lesson From Grandpa Jean.
Description: I asked ChatGPT (AI) to create a picture based on my description of my Grandpa - “An old French Québécois man with a beard, long hair, and flannel outfit.” The above photo looks like a rediculously good looking old man that does have the same features as my Grandpa. And maybe that’s how ladies of his generation saw him 😂 I always thought he looked a little funny with his beard and long hair and flannel.
Recently, I was chatting with a close friend about ADHD, Autism Spectrum, and other neurodivergent minds. The social media algorithms have diagnosed us both as being ADHD and we were discussing whether we thought we were or whether the reels and TikToks were things everyone experienced. I’m not bouncing off the walls with energy however it does sometimes feel that way in my head.
When I think about people being neurodivergent, I often think about my Grandfather Jean. He was different and not everyone’s cup of tea. He was quirky. If you’ve been to Quebec and you’ve seen the old French Québécois men with their beards, long hair, and flannel outfits, then you know what Jean looked like. He wasn’t my biological grandparent, he was someone I adopted for that role when his son married and later divorced my mother. Grandpa remained my Grandpa.
To me Grandpa was logical and I always understood his train of thought.
Later, when I was older, it became clear that his logic didn’t make perfect sense to everyone else. Not everyone came to the same conclusions as him. When I was entering my last year of high school, I lived with him and his wife, Grandma Sylvia.
Before that happened, I was emailing him regularly as my teen years were unfolding and life was complicated. I had A LOT of emotions and he was the person who could calm me with reasoning, understanding, and logic. At first, I emailed him long ranting emails that were most likely 2 or 3 pages long. And he would reply with what looked like poems.
Below is an email he sent me, it’s dated September 2002. Based on this date, I am 15 years old, I suspect I wrote about the tension at home as I’m months from being kicked out of my Grandma Marion’s home (I moved out of my Mom’s house when I was 14). I would leave Marion’s home shortly after the New Year.
“Hi Michelle
Thanks for the phone number
if it changes let me know
now you seem to be having problems with people
try and chalk it up to your time of life
when you become 18 you'll look back
and you'll have changed
when you become 25 you'll look back
and you'll have changed
and so on till you become 70
what's really important
is that your change makes you more pleased with the world around youI have a friend in Calgary
her name is Michele
she has three little girls
4, 7, 10 years old
she also has three foster kids
they all call me grandpa
I like it
they could call me a lot worse
when I go over there
I give them hugs
here's a big hug for you- Grandpa Jean”
At first, I didn’t think about his style of writing, I chalked it up to his quirky personality. Once, I lived with him, I asked him, why he wrote his emails in that style. He said, that he found it difficult to read because by the time he reached the end of a sentence, he often forgot the start of the sentence. So when I would write him long long emails it would take him a long time to digest them. He preferred to write his emails as short thoughts that built up to something more.
Once I knew
how he liked to read
with ease.
I started to write
to him
in the same style.
I didn’t know
at that time
that what I was doing
was being inclusive.
I thought it was the most logical
thing to do.
I sometimes wonder
would other people benefit from this writing style?
When I find that people I work with
don’t seem to read my emails
in full
they skip questions
they ask questions already answered
they react as if in a rush
I switch gears
I write to them
like I wrote to Grandpa
shorter sentences
to the point
clear questions.
If you’re in a rush
or you’re neurodivergent
this style of email
gets the job done!
Grandpa was never diagnosed
I suspect his brain worked
a little differently.
I suspect mine works similarly.
He helped me navigate
my youth,
he often knew
the right words to say.