The Wisest Man in All the World

My grandpa, James Torrence, was the wisest man in all the world. Although his kids are all pretty smart, too (they got it honest). The next time you are watching tv, you can think about my grandpa. He is part of the reason you now have color TV. Grandpa helped invent the color tube that went inside the color TV while he worked at Motorola.

My grandpa was the Vice President of Motorola. He was part of the Model A Restorers Club and held various positions there. He owned his own business out of his home. He had his model A that he restored sitting in the garage that was used in many weddings and parades (and just driving the grandkids around the block for fun while letting us blow the horn). He took a lot of pride in. It was even in the movie, The Untouchables.

Grandpa stayed up most nights working hard to finish the jobs at hand down in his workshop. He was a hard-working and very accomplished man. I didn’t even scratch the surface of all his accomplishments.

The above image accredited to https://www.motorolasolutions.com/content/dam/msi/docs/en-xw/static_files/1971_Motorola_Annual_Report.pdf

Growing up, we lived about 5 minutes from my grandparents. We spent a lot of time at their home. They were my grandparents and my babysitters. When mom and dad would go out of town, to grandma and grandpas we would go. Sometimes it was for an evening but other times it was for multiple days. After we moved from Chicago to NC, I went back and stayed every summer with them so I could spend time with friends and family. They traveled down to NC a couple of times a year and we would also meet at my aunt and uncle’s house in Georgia for Thanksgiving each year. I saw them a lot but somehow it was never often enough. As a kid, I was amazed at how smart my grandpa was. As I grew older, my amazement with his “smarts” grew but my amazement of him as a person grew even more.

I cherished my time with all my grandparents. However, time with grandpa was a little different. Anytime we were there, he would go early in the morning to Dunkin Donuts to pick up a dozen donuts. He was a man of few words. He would sit at the table, quietly reading the Chicago Tribune. I would sit quietly just waiting to hear any thoughts he had from whatever he read. When he spoke… everyone listened. Something important was about to come out of his mouth. Most of the time, I would sit eager to hear something wise from him but not understand a thing he was talking about. It was still amazing to me. He had a lot of wisdom to pass on. However, especially as he hit retirement years, his love for his family seemed to explode. Not that it wasn’t there before but he just seemed to really enjoy soaking in time with the family, especially the smaller children.

We brought friends to visit and grandma and grandpa always made them feel welcome. One year, a friend of mine (who owned a candy store) and I took a trip to Chicago for the big candy convention. My grandpa was always one to try some of the most unique candies and snacks. I tried to find the most unique samples to bring back home for him. He was like a kid in the candy store (pun intended) when we started pulling out all the random candies. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t at least try. The more unique, the more he liked it!

About five years ago, they made the move down to Georgia. It has given us more time with them. After I had undergone pretty extensive ankle surgery, I had gone for a visit. Josh and I stayed at my grandparent’s house instead of my parent’s house so I didn’t have to do the stairs. My grandparents met us outside when we arrived. My grandpa was so overly compassionate. He was beginning to really struggle, physically, yet he had a cane in one hand and his other hand on me making sure I didn’t fall getting into the house. I was worried both of us would get hurt if I fell but he insisted on making sure I got into the house fine.

We would sit on the love seat at my parents and he would tell me again and again how amazing it is to watch small children learning. He would say, “you can watch them learning! Their minds learn so much in such a short time that you can SEE them learning”. I can still hear him laughing in amazement as one of his great-grandbabies would learn something new. He loved every single child we ever brought to visit. It didn’t matter if they were our children through adoption or our foster children, he loved them. It didn’t matter what their skin color was or what they looked like, grandpa was going to hold them and love them as if they were a part of our family. He would call my daughter “my beautiful brown hair, brown-eyed girl”.

The last couple of years, Covid hit and it limited my time with them. About the same time, grandpa started battling dementia. His mind continued to dwindle. It was really difficult to watch the smartest man not be able to remember me. He still told me he loved me… even just last week when I visited. He may not have remembered me or knew who he was saying “I love you” to but I know he loved me. He showed it for 40 years. Today, the journey begins of living a life without the, “I love you’s” and the wise words. He breathed his last breath here on earth. I can only hope that one day, I may be even a fifth of a percent as important to someone as he was to me.

I’ll love you forever, Grandpa!