I was talking to my friends the entire night about my grandfather.

Jeff Berk is home from his first semester at Columbia University, but things aren’t the same. His grandfather died while he was at college. He remembers the good times and camaraderie that they enjoyed. Berk graduated from Taft High School in June and now lives in Brentwood. His grandfather lived in Van Nuys. During midterms I was talking to a girl on the phone around midnight, and there was an emergency breakthrough. It was from Los Angeles. I sat down next to the file cabinet. My roommate was there doing some homework. When my mother told me my grandfather was dead, he just came right over and held my hand. I was really crying out and yelling. Everyone in the hall thought it was my father. I would go to the bathroom and cry and come back to my room. Then I finally calmed down. Thank God for my friends that night. I must have had 30 or 40 friends in my room who came just to stay and talk with me.

That was weird. I was talking to my friends the entire night about my grandfather. His name was Edward Minkoff, but I called him Grandpa Eddie. Everything came back to me that night, everything. I was sitting in the bed, and my friends were all seated around the bed, and I was telling them about my grandfather. I had a picture of him on my wall. I didn’t even have a picture of my parents on the wall. I would sit there and say, “Oh, I remember one time . . . “ My friends who didn’t know him were freaked out when I told them he wore purple high tops. And he wore suspenders, which are coming in now.

I would just tell stories and talk about him, the way he dressed and the way he acted. Things would come back to me. “Jeffrey Burp,” that’s what he would call me. “Jeff-rey Burp!” he would say. We always had names for each other. He’d come up with a new one every year. He called me “Little G” for grandson, and I called him “Big G” for grandfather. Two years ago I outgrew him. I was 6 feet, one half inch. So I became Big G and he was Little G. He never thought I’d get taller than he was. I never thought I’d get taller than he was.

He was tall and good-looking and had a lot of hair. He was dark like me. He was very well built and strong. When you think of grandparents, you think of people who are balding and shrinking. I thought he was getting taller and getting more hair. He was always into acting and expressing himself. It was his nature to be outgoing and expressive.

He was young. You could do anything you wanted to around him, and you didn’t have to be embarrassed. You didn’t have to act mature. I never met any of the grandparents of my friends, even my best friends. But all my friends knew my grandfather. My friends loved him. They came to the funeral too.

He loved finding out what was happening in my life. I used to tell him about my dates. I never told my parents about my dates. My parents are pretty conservative, mature adults. My grandfather was wild and rambunctious. He liked to kid around a lot, and I couldn’t do that with my parents. My parents were the ones who set the rules, and my grandfather was the one who helped me break them. He always had a devious part in him. He wanted to go skiing with me or go out on the town and stay out past bedtime. We’d wrestle. He used to punch me in the stomach, and I used to punch him in the stomach. He used to swim in the pool with me. Even when it was raining and cold, he would do laps.

The day after the funeral, just before I went back to college, a friend of mine came over and we watched a videotape of my going-away-to-college party. My dad went around with the video camera to all my friends at the party, and they said, “Good luck at college.” I hadn’t seen the tape. My grandfather was the last one on the tape. He couldn’t speak--literally--he was so choked up that I was leaving him. He said, “Mike,” that’s my dad, “Mike, I’m just so choked up Jeffrey is going to go to New York. My grandson is all grown up now. He’s going away to college. I just love him so much.” And he walked out the door.