This is a short story that I wrote in one of my college classes. This seemed as good a place as any to put it.
"Jewell," the old man's voice calls from the kitchen.
A small plump scurries to the kitchen. Tightly curled, gray hair frames a brow furrowed in concern, as she walks to the aid of the man who has called out to her. She comes to stand next to the man that has shared her life for the past 68 years. Their eyes meet first in the mirror, before he turns to face her.
"Who is that man there?" he asks and turns to point to his own reflection.
My grandfather now walks past mirrors and sees strangers. The man who smelled of horses and motor oil, now looks at me with questions in his eyes, and wonders who I am. It is an uncanny experience to be forgotten by your grandfather. It is a denial of self to some degree.
I would like to say that I know my granddaddy really well. However, if I were to say that, it would be an out and out bald-faced lie. And I try never to lie (blatantly anyway). I have long since passed the age where there was no better place in the world to spend the day than my Grandma Walker's house. That is something that I have not yet learned to regret.
My grandparents lived on a farm. A real farm, with tractor's, and cows, and horses. Essentially I remember it as a place of "Don't goes..." and "You better come back here......" and "Why don't you....." and my favorite "Don't make me get a willow switch...." Jodi, Jason and I (or my cousins for that matter) never truly considered these
limitations. It simply meant we had to be more creative in getting away with our adventures.
My Grandma and Granddaddy were always up with the sun. They didn't even need an alarm clock I don't think. They just woke up. Granddaddy would get up and go out to take care of the morning chores on the farm, while Grandma was fixing breakfast. I would wake up to the smell of pancakes, bacon, coffee, eggs and to the sounds of the oven door closing, and dishes being washed, and the local country music station with Willy Wilson telling about the comings and goings of Cadiz. It would invariably be the news bulletin sound that woke me up, and got me to leave the feather bed and stumble into the kitchen. Grandma would have the coffee in the percolator. It was not a coffee pot. It was actually one of those percolators like on the Maxwell's House commercials. It was silver and had a clear glass bauble on the top. When it was ready the coffee splurched up into that ball. It plugged right into the wall, and of course it was hot so we were to be very careful.
Granddad would come to the table smelling like dew and the morning breeze, with the slightest hint of hay and grass. He would be dressed in engineer coveralls, those stiff, heavy denim striped blue and white. Over that he would have a green insulated jacket. He would pull off the jacket, hang it in the closet, then sit down and pour himself a cup of coffee.
He always tilted his coffee cup so that some would spill over into his saucer. He would drink out of his saucer first, then his cup. Of course, since Granddaddy was drinking coffee we all had to have some too. And after much begging, and my granddad saying "Aww, Jewel, it ain't gonna hurt 'em none," we would be allowed half a cup of coffee sweetened with half a quart of sweet- n-low.
We would eat our breakfast, kiss Granddaddy goodbye, and then we would go back to bed again until the sun decided to come up. Grandma would begin her morning cleaning ritual. She cleaned her house from top to bottom every single day... because "You never know when someone might stop by."
Granddad would leave carrying his old metal lunch box, with huge matching thermos. In the summer, the thermos was filled with ice, that would melt offering ice cold drinking water. In the winter, it carried the remains of the morning coffee. He would pile into his truck that was so old that it had lost any semblance of paint and was simply one huge piece of rust with four wheels and a seat. Grandma said that the truck was dangerous. Not because it was a speeding demon, with it's top speed of 35 miles per hour, but because it had numerous sharp edges, pit falls, holes and all of my Granddad's tools. It was simply to her way of thinking, no place for children. That of course means that we were all fascinated by it. It was in this speeding death trap, the he lovingly called a
truck, that my Granddad practiced his only vice. Only in this truck, would he allow himself the pleasure of smoking cigars. I, of course, do not believe that he had any such vice, but such is the rumor mill among cousins in a small town.
Granddad would usually come home for lunch if he was working close enough to the house. To this day, my Grandma still fixes a big lunch for any family or friends who want to stop by for a bite to eat. Whenever Granddaddy was expected home for lunch, we always got something better than just sandwiches.
After lunch, we wouldn't see Granddaddy again until twilight. That was our play time. He would shed his green jacket, and then we would crawl over him as if he were a human jungle gym. Our favorite game to play was BEAR. Granddaddy would get down on all fours and chase after us as we ran screaming through the house. When he caught us, he would lift up our shirts and rub his whiskers on our bellies, and blow raspberries against our sides.
The ultimate torture was if Granddaddy decided to attack our tickle spots. My Granddaddy created in each of his grandchildren a tickle spot. It is located on the inner thigh, just above the right knee. If one of us was sitting on the couch, and didn't get up to give him a kiss when he came home, or if we were too involved in the television to pay him any mind, he would calmly walk over, lean down and offer his cheek to be kissed. As you stretched toward him, he would attack your tickle spot and proceed to administer a short lecture on why "You should never be too busy to get up and give your old Granddad a kiss to say hello." Any argument we made as to the importance of what we were doing was happily met with "I don't care whatchu were a doin......you come
and kiss your granddaddy hello." There were needless to say very few instances when we didn't run up to meet him when he came home from work.
To this day, each and every one of us suffer from spasms when someone threatens our tickle spots. I am not as a rule subject to being tickled, but if someone offers to get my tickle spot, I immediately begin to plot my escape.
My Granddaddy was never a harsh man. He was never anything other than really happy and content, that I can remember. He could give one of the best, and longest, lectures on what he considered proper behavior (and it didn't matter to him if you were at home, in the store, or driving down the road, he would stop and you would listen). He was never a violent man, and used his words rather than his hand to discipline us. He was my grandfather, a kind and gentle man with a playful spirit and a well developed work ethic.
It is that part of him that remains today, the kindness and playfulness. It is the only part of him that I still recognize.
My Granddaddy began to succumb to Alzheimer's disease. The first indications were lost on me, and only with retrospect can I see that the man I knew was fading away within himself.
I will never forget the summer that we had all gathered at Grandma Walker's for dinner. I had loaded onto my plate some round fried object that I had assumed was zucchini. I was sitting next to my Granddad at the picnic table, and I took a bite of one of the UFO's (unknown fried objects) and promptly spit it back out.
Granddaddy looked at me and asked "What's wrong? Don't you like them?" I scrunched up my nose and shook my head. "Well then," he said, "just throw it on off into the garden."
My eyes got as round as saucers. My Granddaddy was telling me to break one of the cardinal rules (these being if it is on your plate then you have to eat it, and there is no reason why anyone needs more than one soda in a day). This man who once told me that if I did not finish my supper, then I would be having it again for breakfast was now telling me to throw away food. Well, you can bet that I tossed those tomatoes into the garden as fast as I could.
At the time, I thought that finally, my Granddaddy was viewing me as an adult. I was capable of making my own decisions, and much too old to be forced to eat something that I didn't like. "Hell," I thought to myself "I think I am going to get me another Dr. Pepper."
Now, I realize that my Granddaddy was losing himself.
I have never been one to visit my grandparents. After I went to college, and moved to Bowling Green, It was very rare for me to make the trip to Grandma Walker's. Because of that, I have not had to witness how my grandfather has changed.
I was not there the first time he got lost in the fields behind the house. I was not there when they sold his truck and his old car so that he wouldn't try to drive them off to work. I have not had to help my Grandma Walker get to the store for groceries, since she never got her driver's license, nor have I been required to help maintain the
farm, cutting the hay, feeding the horses and the cows. I was not there the day my Grandfather asked who the man in the mirror was.
I was there this Christmas. I stepped into the small house, and found him sleeping on the couch (he was sitting up with his legs crossed, but still fast asleep though you would think he was simply in deep thought). I woke him up when I sat next to him. He looked at me, grinned and then asked my Grandma who I was. I sat next to him for some time, trying to decipher the speech that several small strokes has made intelligible. Grandma would often offer some translation, but most of the time she could not. Several times he asked me who I was. I was at a loss. How do you tell someone, "I'm your granddaughter. I'm Amy. Why don't you remember me?" Grandma answered for me. "She's Wayne's daughter. She's Amy."
Before I left, my Granddaddy came up to me and said as clear as he ever spoke...
"I sure don't' know who you are, but I'm gonna give you a hug anyway."
It means something to me at least, that although this man doesn't remember my name, or who I am, he can remember somewhere inside of him that he loved me.
I look now at this man, who is the embodiment of so many of my childhood memories. This man who for some reason is lost within his own skin. I look at him and see him sitting in his chair, eating thawed strawberries over vanilla ice cream; or hiding in the bushes waiting for some unsuspecting child to fall prey to the BEAR; or walking through the fields behind the house followed by his herd of cows; or riding his horse in the Christmas parade.
He is a man that was always happy, always smiling. That essence of him, which is the truest part of who he is, remains unaffected. I can look at him, smiling, happy, and think I catch a glimpse of him trying to chase down some memory or another. I regret that I never knew this man as anything other than my Granddaddy. That I never put forth the effort to know him as a person. And I am left to wonder what wealth of information, knowledge, wisdom, humor and joy have I denied myself? Now it is too late, for I have a grandfather no longer, but there is a man who sleeps in his bed, and lives in his house. That man sees strangers when he walks by the mirror.
