Brylcreem, Brushes and Grandfathers (Letters To Mahri – January 30, 2008)

Dearest Mahri,

I saw an elderly Chinese man on the bus the other day and he reminded me of my Grandad. Now my Grandad, Samuel Mackie (your Great-Grandad), was not Asian, as this might suggest. He was made of the heartiest Celtic blood there is. (Though he would be quick to point out that, as a Protestant, he followed the Glasgow Rangers, and not the Glasgow Celtic). But the man I saw on the bus sat with dignity and grace; and his graying hair was slicked back with Brylcreem.

By the time you read this, Brylcreem may not exist. So let me steal from Wikipedia: Brylcreem is a brand name of a men’s hair grooming product. It was created in 1928 by County Chemicals at the Chemico Works in Bradford Street, Birmingham, England. Brylcreem’s purpose is to keep combed hair in place while giving it a deep shine or gloss. It is essentially an emulsion of water and mineral oil stabilized with beeswax.

So Grandad Mackie’s head always looked slick, wet and cool. To pull that off you have to be (1) truly a man’s man; and to be that you have to be (2) a man who’s seen a lot of honest miles. Grandad Mackie was both.

His is a story that is really worth knowing. Granddad worked as a shipbuilder in Scotstoun on the River Clyde, on the outskirts of Glasgow. He started working there at age 14, and didn’t retire until he was 68. Sam was a plater, shaping large sheets of metal for ships and was so well respected in the trade that the company brought him out of retirement at age 65. For three years, they would send a driver to Duntocher, his small village, and bring him to the yards to train young apprentices.

During the depression, Sam was laid off for a few years and worked as a door-to-door clothing salesman. When he was thirty-two (my current age), he knocked on the door of the Mirrens, home to Agnes Mirren, then 24. They fell in love and hoped to marry, but decided to put off a wedding so that Sam could care for his widowed mother. They waited eight years before finally getting married in 1942. In today’s world, marrying that late would seem quite normal, but back then it would have been out of the ordinary. But they wanted to honour and serve their families first, and this was how they felt they needed to do that. But it doesn’t stop there.

Agnes’ sister in Ireland became pregnant out of wedlock. But Sam and Agnes took the child, little baby Elizabeth, into their home and raised her as their own. This is your Grandma Goode, my mother.

Honour your father and mother and it will go well with you, it says in the Old Testament. And the Apostle Paul points out that this is the first commandment with a promise. This truth becomes more and more obvious to me as I grow older. It was a great sacrifice to delay their marriage for their family. But it was an even greater sacrifice to take in your grandmother as their own. This was the late 1940s, in a poor village, in working class Scotland. There must have already been some social tension from their marriage because Anges was from a Catholic family and Sam was from a Protestant family. So can you imagine how the village would have seen this mixed Mackie family now adding an illegitimate child? (It’s almost too much to bear to think about that.) But Sam and Agnes honoured their family and raised my mother like their own. (And you only need to ask your Grandmother who she feels her real parents are to find out how well they did that.)

But even as hard as your Great-Grandfather worked, it would not have provided a lot in their retirement years. My mother had already moved to Vancouver when she was eighteen, married my father and had me in their late twenties. When I was three years old my mom went back to work to pay for a basement suite so that they could permanently move Sam and Agnes into our home. (My Grandma Goode, my father’s mom, also moved into our home seven years later.) So I grew up knowing my Grandparents all through my childhood. And they enjoyed the rest they deserved, living much longer because of the care my parents provided them. Plus, they got to dote all over their one and only grandchild: me. Lucky them. : )

Actually, lucky me. I’ve always considered myself very blessed to have known them so closely. When people talk about their “grandparents”, I’m not sure they mean the same thing that I mean when I say it, because for me, they were always just a hallway and a door away. I would have morning tea and cookies with them. They babysat me hundreds and hundreds of times. And just about every evening when I was young, I sat at my Grandma Mackie’s feet and watched The Lawrence Welk Show with them both (he was a big band leader on TV) as she picked away at my hair looking for lice. (I never had any, but it was what her generation did.) Her fingers scratching my scalp gave me goosebumps every time.

Sam passed away on February 22nd, 1989. I was 14. Agnes died 12 years ago today, on January 30th, 1996 when I was 20, living in Calgary at the time. I still miss them so much and wish you could have met them. They would have adored you.

I still have the brush that my Grandfather slicked back his hair with. It is a treasure to me. I’ve even used it on your head from time to time. And those are truly holy moments for me, because—and this is the important part—you are a continuation of their honorable lives.

Much love,

Dad.