June 7, 2015
My grandfather is a story-teller. I've listened to his stories many times without even hearing them. In my mind, he's always been old; a grandfather long before I was born. Sitting in his living room, quiet and awkward, I've waited for him to stop talking. Let me get a word in edgewise, I've thought to myself. Let me speak. I've resented his voice; his precedence.
The last time I saw him, he told a new story; new to me perhaps, and maybe it felt old to him but he told it as concisely and clearly as if it had happened to him yesterday. He spoke of his graduation from officer's training, and the sky-blue car he drove through a small town, down a long curving stretch of road. "Sky-blue", he called it several times. My favorite color. I love to see it everywhere, in the things I touch every day; the things I wear; the things my children wear. I look into his eyes, and it's like I've seen them for the first time. Sky blue.
A picture forms in my mind, and I see him as a young man, in the dark blue of his new lieutenant ' s uniform, his four hundred percent increase in pay resting luxuriously in his mind; young and powerful behind the wheel of his brand- new blue car, his eyes on the road ahead. His same eyes, his same mind- this same man that I've never seen before, and never known. His blood in my veins; his same desire to be heard. How have I not noticed we have the same eyes?
He sits in a tall chair, straight-backed, and he could still be wearing a uniform, the way every button is precisely buttoned. When I feel miserable I lounge in my pajamas all day, my consideration for others far outweighed by my own desire for comfort. I respect his nicely-buttoned shirt. I respect his resolution in the face of pain.
I've never tried to imagine his house without him; he seemed
permanent, immovable; as firmly planted as the soaring spruce tree in the back yard. "I think we may be going to lose that tree," my grandmother tells me. It shakes me. It's been there my whole life, just like they have. I grasp at something to hold on to, and all I have is what I know and believe to be true: This world, no matter how beautiful, no matter how painful, isn't all we have. It can't be.
"You know what, Mother? Today is actually night. When we die; that's when we will really be awake." Chloe's eyes looking into mine are dark, but she has inherited her great-grandfather's passion for books and for stories, and in her eyes is ageless wisdom. "You must become like a child", the Master said. I know I must.
Grandfather; I'll see you in the Morning.
