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In search of my grandfather's past … and maybe a book deal

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Hold my Hand

I woke up smiling, because I never expected to meet him there.

My Grandpa Phil died 14 years before I was born. Unlike my Grammy Helen, Grandpa and Grandma Krajenke, he and I had no shared experiences that might cause my sleeping subconscious to toss up a memory disguised as a dream.

Which makes what happened last night all the more magical.

I love all my grandparents. In the years since their passing, I’ve met them again in the oddest, but always joyous, moments. An unexpected whiff of Opium perfume that appeared from nowhere (Hi, Doris!); a crystal-clear, post-meditation vision of my tanned, grinning Grandpa Richard, waving from a swimming pool; Grammy sending me pennies in unexpected places and dream notes. Even my excellent Uncle Rick, who died too early in 2007, nudged me over the radio with a song by his beloved Beatles on or near the anniversary of his passing. But over the 20 years of working on “Three Rivers Home,” I’d come to understand that Grandpa Phil likely wouldn’t appear in my dreamscapes because he’d been sadly absent from my childhood.

Until last night, which coincidentally happened to be the 103rd year since the morning he awoke to the horrors of the Brenckle Farm Fire.

It was the first time, ever, that I dreamed of Grandpa Phil. In that distant kingdom, he was hale, hearty, and healthy. I’ve never heard his voice, but when he spoke, I was sure it was true — Pittsburghese, tinged with an Italian-American childhood. I don’t remember much, other than being so excited to see him. We were in the Pittsburgh of today, a modern world of autonomous vehicles on Grant Street and the PPG building ascending, in all its chrome-shining glory, to the sky. The city, compressed in that dream-like way, made the Kaufmann’s Clock intersection across the street from PPG Place.

More than anything, I wanted to bring him home, to the house he built, where, in my dream, I knew my cousins, brother, mom, dad and aunt waited with Grammy. “Let’s tell her!” the dream me said. “She’s going to be so excited.”

And then, as we prepared to cross the street, he took my hand. My last thought before waking was, “I can’t believe it! I’m holding Grandpa’s hand.”

I awoke. It was 3 a.m. I chuckled softly in the darkness, exhaling the surprised thrill I’d drawn in the dream.

This, like the Christmas letters, the photo or the dozens of little twinkling outposts of hope along the way, serves as a sign — to me, anyway — that those we love never truly leave us, even if that love transcends mortality.

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Found, Together

It still doesn’t feel real. Twenty years after I put my head down on a lonely desk in an empty newspaper office and pulled it up with his image burning across my brain, this journey Grandpa Phil and I took together meets its incredible conclusion. I have a book deal.

On May 13, I signed with Sunbury Press to publish Three Rivers Home.

While there’s still so much to do (developmental editing, more beta reads, fact-checking), I’m reveling in the joy this moment brings.

It will be real, on a shelf, just like the thousands of books that shaped my childhood and adulthood. What’s more, in seeing a little boy who lost everything thrice over survive, readers might find strength to get through their hardest days.

Last week, I got to share I the happy news with my amazingly supportive friends at Pennwriters during our annual conference. It was at the 2024 event in Lancaster that I met Lawrence Knorr, Sunbury’s CEO, and pitched my manuscript. Returning to Pittsburgh, where I’d begun pitching, was an especially sweet, full-circle moment. The talented colleagues I’ve met through Pennwriters are an invaluable source of inspiration, information and generosity. One theme running through Three Rivers Home is finding where you belong. Like stepping through the doors of Ursuline Academy, onto the portico at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism or into newsrooms across Pennsylvania, there’s something soul-settling about gathering with my fellow writers.

So, what have I learned across two decades, thousands of hours, multiple rejections and more than one computer disaster that almost ate all my hard work? The same thing Grandpa Phil did: Just.Keep.Going.

Satisfying endings aren’t guaranteed. It’s only in looking back that all the connections seem to point toward success. In reality, nothing’s certain — except that giving up ensures failure.

The family Grandpa and Grammy created remains. Not all in Pittsburgh, but we are together, living in a future I’m not sure either could imagine. The family his story created — through writing groups, compassionate beta readers, encouraging friends and helpful historians — will add new members as the book launches (date to be determined.)

Music has been another constant through this journey. From Phil’s mysterious, one-time performance of “Sweethearts on Parade” to the “Hamilton” and “Moana” soundtracks that soothed the pandemic’s depths and inspired me to keep trying. It wasn’t a surprise when a song I’d long forgotten found me again. “Almost Home,” off Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Party Doll and Other Favorites” album, rang out as the Squirrel Hill Tunnel’s darkness gave way to a bright May morning shining over the city view that never fails to take my breath away. It’s an amazing feeling, isn’t it? Knowing whatever journey you’ve completed is past, and you’re returning to a place of safety and rest. I imagine, had it existed in 1924, the words would have resonated with Phil and Joey, too. As the horrors of their childhood receded, the boys walked out of Allegheny County Courthouse as part of a family and headed back to Troy Hill. They weren’t running. They weren’t hiding. They were almost home.

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