Granddaddy

On November 5, 2021, at around 4:00 am, Samuel Lanier Snyder, Sr., passed away. He had been fighting COVID-19 for weeks, but as the season's first frost was moving into Lexington, Granddaddy's soul moved out.

It is such an unexpected and unfair thing to lose him now. He was a big, strong, larger-than-life man that could still outwork me a month ago. It speaks to how unbelievably cruel and overpowering this pandemic is.

Ever since we started to realize we were going to lose him a few days ago, my mind has been filled with memories about my Granddaddy's character, personality, and accomplishments. And although I knew it already, these recollections have reinforced my conviction that he was one of the very best people I ever knew. He was incredibly generous, kind, and selfless. I have seen him give of himself in immense ways to help others, so quietly and matter-of-factly that it was clear it was instinctive, an essential part of his principles and, in his eyes, his duty. He wasn't looking for attention or applause when he helped other people - in fact, he brushed it off if you said anything appreciative. He was just doing what he knew was right.

Granddaddy had a way of showing you he loved you without having to say it. He'd clear his throat gruffly when we'd walk into his workshop and he'd just say, "What're you doing?" And we knew he was glad to see us. At holiday gatherings he'd walk by me and pinch my arm, or push one of my brothers' shoulders, and he'd give us this grin. And we always knew what it meant. And we grinned back.

He'd make us grandkids laugh with his purely observational comments and rhetorical questions about our changing appearances as we got older. "You wearing eye makeup?" he asked me a couple years ago, one day when I was hanging around while he and Daddy were building a fence. When I got my hair dyed, his only comment was, "Is that a temporary color or a permanent one?" It was one of my favorite interactions about my new look, because it was so Granddaddy. Another one from this summer, one Saturday when I was out working in my farming clothes: "You got your overalls on?"

He liked to say funny off-color phrases around us when we were old enough to hear it, just to make us laugh. Many of them came from his legendary father, Garlan, and I know he liked passing on the tradition. "I don't know whether to shit or wind my watch," he said recently when asked how he was doing. I burst out laughing and he grinned, so proud of himself. "You hadn't heard that one before?" It was like he'd given me a present. I loved it.

I have a childhood image engrained in my mind of him and Grandmother swing dancing together when my family band was playing for them and their friends - my tall, brawny Granddaddy and my petite, classy Grandmother, both of them chuckling, surprising us all with their moves.

He was really good at talking about family history and lineages. Especially after I started farming, he understood that I wanted to learn all about those things. He'd get to telling stories and pointing out places and buildings of significance on our property, which has been in the family for generations. He showed me how the side planks on the smokehouse were whitened from the salted meat, and where they hung the slaughtered pig from the corner of the building so they could carve it into the different cuts. When he disked up my garden plot early this summer, he let me watch and help him hook up the machinery to his tractor. He had me go fetch him this heavy metal pole that was sharp at one end. After he used it to wedge the machinery into place, he explained to me, much to my delight, that it was once an axle for a Model A Ford, and that it had been sharpened into a tool by his blacksmith uncle once the Ford was out of commission. It meant so much to me that he took the time to add pieces to the family history puzzle in my head. Another time, he took great amusement in narrating how, when he was a boy, his family had to use an outhouse, and they ripped out pages from the Sears catalog for toilet paper. His sense of humor was very dry - you should have seen the look he would get on his face when he told those stories - like he was just on the edge of a belly laugh.

Man, he could work. He had the greatest work ethic I've ever witnessed, only to be mirrored by my Daddy and my older brother Zeb, who learned it from him. He'd be out in the scorching heat, with sweat dripping off the end of his nose and his back hurting, and everything going wrong with whatever project he was working on - but by god, it would get done. He built furniture and did a beautiful job on various other woodworking projects; he maintained the property and repaired all damages from small fencing issues to a caved-in barn roof; he walked around looking up at the trees, spotting the dead ones and predicting where they'd fall; he kept an immaculate, beautiful yard and garden; he raised produce every year; within the last couple of months, he graded the lot behind the barn and dug a massive trench along the length of it by hand to keep the rainwater from running inside, all by himself. I'd look out the window and see him rolling along next to the highway on his bright orange Kubota tractor with the bucket up, headed somewhere on the property to take care of who knows what. I undertook a deep clean of the barn floor the year after I got goats, in which I was forking thick, matted piles of hay and manure into a trailer hitched to Daddy's tractor. Granddaddy watched for a while and then stepped in to to show me how I could be more efficient. He took the pitchfork: "Here - you've got to fork it like you mean it." And he stabbed the pitchfork deep into the layers of decay, hauling up a bigger piece than I'd managed to obtain so far and tossing it into the trailer. He handed it back to me and I made sure I really meant it for the rest of the day, feeling the satisfaction of a job well done. I hope everyday I become more of a badass like him.

I'll never forget going to ask him if I could use the barn to raise my own goats. I had my heart set on two I'd found online, but I needed to make sure he was okay with me having them, since it was on his property and they'd be next-stall-neighbors to his own goats. In true Granddaddy fashion, he was working in the garden the whole time I was talking; I followed him around as I timidly explained what I was wanting. I hate asking for things from anybody and I had to force myself to do it. The conversation went well, but without necessarily coming to a strong conclusion. He would always hear a new idea and not be sure what to think of it at first. Then he would go home, think about it, and it would grow on him and he'd become so determined to take action that he'd often beat whoever came up with the idea to the punch when it came to actually doing something. That's what happened that day. He wasn't critical of the idea when I asked him - he was good with it, but he didn't have a lot to say yet, and I myself wasn't sure when I'd go get the goats yet. A few hours later, he was calling me on the phone to come help him load the goat carrier onto his trailer so that we could pick the goats up as soon as possible. I was thrilled and amused - no turning back now. We were doing this. And I've never looked back.

His love for animals might be one of my favorite things about him. I am quite certain that my great passion for all creatures great and small came straight from him. He had such a soft spot for them. He would just melt around them. Hand him a puppy or a goat kid; he'd say, "Hey, baby," and cradle it in his arms, sweet talking it, a gentle giant. Show him injured livestock - he'd step in there with them, walk up and get a hold of them, and study the injury up close, no matter how gory or dirty the job was. His and Grandmother's dog, Sadie, never wanted him out of her sight. She jumped up and wrestled with his pants leg whenever he got up to leave the room. He shared his vanilla sandwich cookies with her. He didn't even like to kill black snakes. "They ain't hurting anyone, they're just hunting the rats." This spring, when he was with me in the barn watching me move my expanded herd around, I noticed him smiling as he watched one of my baby goats come trotting down the run. "That's a pretty goat, right there," he said as she loped by. It made me swell with pride. "Yeah, she is," I said happily. I found out he liked to feed them leftover bread scraps occasionally; he'd offer them through the fence by his and Grandmother's house and the goats would stampede over to get their treats. He hated the thought of any kind of animal abuse. I think the fact that it existed kept him awake at night sometimes. Every animal I've seen under his care has always been well-tended; they had regular vet visits, vaccinations, good grooming, good food. His desire to have livestock on the property all the time is what gave me the opportunity to deep-dive into observing animal behavior as a youngster. He bought boar goats, just to have them as pets and so the land would stay nice and clean. He let my brothers and I name them and never once minded me spending countless hours following them around, watching their every move. We kept up a dialogue about the goats and watched out for each others' herds for the rest of his life. This summer, he noticed one of my goats, Will, was limping before I spotted it myself. Grandmother let me know that he was heading out to check on it - I immediately pulled on my boots to go and meet him. Before I even got there, he had found a stick wedged in Will's hoof and removed it. Will was already back to his normal gait by the time I reached him. Granddaddy had everyone's backs that way, all the time.

This spring/early summer, he was very insistent that I buy hay for my goats. As a young farmer with no experience, I didn't understand why - they were living completely off the land as they did every summer. Why not wait until the fall harvest and buy the hay that was baled then, when they needed it? But I learned that it's always wise to stock up on hay when you can get it, in case something happens and the weather makes it impossible to make hay later on. So I listened to him and bought a stock of hay bales. Now it's autumn, and I'm sitting here thinking about my lean-to full of hay and the fact that I don't have to worry about where to find it now. It's almost like he was preparing me, and our farm, for him being gone, without even knowing it.

He leaves a great void. He was the patriarch, the cornerstone. But he passed down so many lessons to the next generations. I see him in my Daddy, who is already my own rock and role model. I see him in my brother Zeb, who walks and talks so much like him. I see him in my baby brother Owen, who Granddaddy liked to call The Big O.H., and who has the powerful Snyder build. Everything about this land we live on - the barn and the machinery and the tools and the trees - has his fingerprints on it. If I could tell him anything, it's that his memory and his stories will live on in our family forever, nurtured and shared with respect and love. One day, I hope to tell my kids or nieces or nephews about their great-granddaddy, so that he is as much of a vivid, beloved figure in their minds as his own father, Papaw Garlan, was in mine. Rest in peace, Granddaddy. Without you, I don't know whether to shit or wind my watch.