|
...I was talking to my girlfriend... while she was doing
her hair at the sink... About my Grandpa John...
About how I was still mad at him for yankin my college funds out from
under me when I was going to that expensive West Coast photography school. How that was
really stupid on my part to still let that effect me 14 years later and that I should
really let it go... cause I figure from his perspective he still knows he did the right
thing cause, if I was gonna make a good living from photography then I would have found a
way to do it, even with out his financial help - and I didn't, so I must be a lazy little
ingrate that ripped him off... but from my whinny little perspective he somehow owed me
that money - so that I could go to the expensive art school... bla bla bla
...Then later I was getting the mail...
A stone cold glaze came over me as my glance happened to peruse the
return address of a letter addressed to me...
So here I stand with a letter that has a return address from John and
Mildred ...
I was frozen... For 36 years of my life this return address has meant a
card with a letter (and a check on birthdays and Christmas) from my grandma. Not always
expected, not always needed - but always there... and always made me feel good. On almost
no occasion, except the letter that cut off my college funding, can I remember Grandpa
signing or saying much of anything to me in these letters. Just grandma, giving me the
weather, what they had been doing that day (Garage sales and going out to lunch) and how
much she hoped I was happy (where ever I was at the time) and that she was thinking of me
and loved me.
These few scrawled ink stains always reminded me of her incredibly warm
and smooth hand, gently rubbing my back, up under my shirt as she contently listened to my
every childlike word, sprawled across her lap. The way she would look at me as if I were
the most precious thing alive. With her smiling face that would seem to dissolve any woe I
had at the time and let me know with only that glance
that everything was gonna be all right.
...and here I am today...
with a letter in my hand... with a return
address from John and Mildred ...
I still have the letter somewhere - the one from my Grandpa - the one
from all those years ago. I've read it from time to time, with as much spite as I was
feeling at the time. That this avaricious churl would take from me, what was, in my
princess laden mind, mine. The phrases that have echoed in my recesses
"...not gonna throw good money after bad..."
"...Never be able to pay it back..."
"...cost as much as a doctor's degree and not worth it just to learn
photography..."
I was devastated, as my inexperience with finances did not allow me to
understand anything; only that I was being taken away from the one thing that I loved...
... So here I stand with a letter that has a return address from John and
Mildred
I open the letter and the card and the check falls out. The face of the
card has a little boy comfortably asleep with covers and a pillow on a slice of the moon
over a sleepy little cabin in the woods covered with snow. There is smoke coming out of
the chimney and the yellow glow from the windows seem to invite one to ultimate calm.
I am reminded of a recent email that my sister sent me, having seen my
grandpa since grams death... she said she had never put much stock in someone dying of a
broken heart... until she sees him now... having aged many years in the few short months
since her death.
The card in my hand says, Christmas Wishes For A Special Grandson... may
all your Christmas dreams come true... and upon opening it up says, Merry Christmas
Grandson With love... and it's signed Grandpa
I know that grandma picked this card out... she probably bought it at an
after Christmas sale... Maybe this year, maybe any time in the last 10 years... but I know
she bought it and now he is sending out the cards - a cruel, lonely and vicious reality
that he faces everyday... after they did it together for 60 years.
On the left hand side of the card he has taken a few minutes to write:
Hi Alan
Hope you have a good Christmas. Look forward to having the girls down
here for Xmas.
I am gettin along OK. Keep busy in the daytime, but have some long
lonesome nights. I sure miss grandma. Sure glad you sent her that card from Prague - She
kept it where she could see it till she died.
love,
Grandpa
|