5 Posts That Led To This One
- Goodbye Grandma
- Walking With The Dead
- Pictures, Videos and Memories
- The Bearer of Bad Tidings- One Less Set of Footsteps
- He Died A Hero
There were 9,837,839 girls here last night but even though they spent the night very few of them slept which I suppose is part of why I didn’t.
It was a birthday celebration, the dreaded much loved slumber party and my daughter’s friends filled the house with lots of laughter and some of the shrieks that only come from girls but that is neither here nor there.
Last week I had a dream in which my paternal grandfather came to visit me. I stood in a bedroom and watched as he unpacked a bag filled with pictures.
I don’t know where we were but it wasn’t any of the hones I have lived in because when I looked out of the window the ground was covered in snow and the trees were bare.
The dog woke me up long before I was ready to face the day but mostly because grandpa was telling me something very important and the barking made it impossible for me to hear what it was he as saying.
Yet when I climbed into the shower I felt like whatever it was he had been telling me was waiting for me to find it. It was like he dropped a package in the back of the closet of my mind and all I have to do is find it and I’ll know what is in it.
Time Flowing Like A River
Shortly after the sun disappeared behind the mountains my son and I headed out to pick up the pizza and I had this crazy feeling that my maternal grandfather was sitting in the back seat of the car.
I didn’t look to see if he was there nor did I mention it to my son but he knew something was going on.
He looked at me and asked why I was smiling and I told him it was because I was happy. He asked me how I could be happy when the house was being overrun by girls and I told him one day he might like that.
He groaned and for a moment I thought I could hear my grandfather laughing.
Later that night I wandered into the garage, sat down on the stairs in the dark and just listened.
I don’t know what I was listening for or what I was trying to hear but I do know that for a moment I could feel the presence of both of my grandfathers.
It was as if the two of them were standing on either side of me, one hand on each of my shoulders. I am smiling just thinking about it, don’t care if it is was real or imagination.
Sitting here at the computer I can picture it, time is flowing like a river and I see myself as a very young boy moving through the years to the present.
I remember the days when my grandfathers were so very big compared to me and I remember when I grew taller than both of them.
It is surreal to picture, so strange to see this slow motion movie and watch them age. So strange to think about how they used to carry me and then during the last years of their lives I was the one carrying them.
Two Funerals
They outlived my grandmothers. I stood next to them at two different funerals and I kept them standing straight.
It never occurred to me until now how similar those moments were because if you had asked me I would have said they were different.
I want to talk to my kids about this. I want to share the story with them because I want them to understand the importance of family helping each other. I want them to understand there are moments when we have to lean on each other and they should be prepared to lend a hand or shoulder and not expect anything in return.
It is just what you do. It is how I grew up, what I was taught and all I know.
Every time I hear/see something different it makes me shake my head and wonder what happened in that family.
Free Flowing Content & The Closet
The words are flowing freely without any guide and falling onto the page wherever they choose to land. It is not going to be the greatest post I have ever written and I am sure the experts would chastise me for not following their very important rules and regulations about how to blog but that is ok with me.
You don’t hit a home run every time you are at bat nor do you strike out.
I am closing my eyes while I type so that I can look inwards and try to find the place grandpa put that package. Somewhere in the closet it lies in the dark and I want to know what it says.
Maybe it will be the thing that provides new meaning, substance and guidance to my life or maybe it will be something silly. Maybe it will be both or maybe it will be neither.
Either way I want to see what it says.
Great Grandparents & Slumber Parties
Just a few more moments before I put down my pen and do something else. Just a few more moments to try to scratch out something profound or something pithy.
The best part of sitting on the steps in the garage was that feeling that maybe, just maybe my grandparents were at the party. I have never forgotten how proud they were of their great grandchildren and how broadly they used to smile every time they saw them.
They would be so pleased and so proud of those kids of mine. I would have given quite a bit to get to see them talk to the kids now.
A number of posts lately have focused on past generations. The junior psychologist in me wonders what is causing this look or increased interest in the past.
Slumber party – uggh. Nice of you and the Shmatah queen for you to put up with 9 million girls.
Tell the junior psychologist I am just meshugah and to roll with it. 😉
First I am surprised your grandfathers outlived your grandmothers. Usually women outlive men. Life is interesting in that we are born as babies and if we live long enough we return to being babies and needing to be taken care of again. Thanks for painting the picture of grandfathers. It made me think of my deceased grandfather.
P.S. I am testing an email pop up optin form on my site that appears after 15 seconds. It only appears once every 28 days unless you get rid of your cookies. Just letting you know ahead of time because I know they can be annoying as shit, but I want to see how they work for a few days.
Three of my grandparents lived into their nineties so the men and women did pretty damn well.
I don’t know that we necessarily have to return to being babies. I want to live a long life but I am planning on being able to care for myself the whole time.
Of course you know I love this. THAT is the feeling that gets you everywhere.
Yes it does.
Just woke up with a glimpse of my maternal grandmother wearing all white – slowly making her way to the front door.
It was a dream. She passed away more than twenty years ago. I was reading Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past at the time and Proust’s grandmother died in the novel about a week or so before mine. I knew her time was up as I read Proust’s recounting of the loss and I dashed off a letter to her. My first and last letter to her. I’m told she died with it in her hands.
I haven’t seen her for about twenty years when I had a severe allergic reaction to something in the air and an injection at the hospital didn’t seem to be working.. She had come to me in a dream with a simple cure – a cold, wet towel over my face.
Stan, that sounds like a story you should write. That is a post, maybe two or three posts. You have something there, I am not talking about for commercial purposes either.
Something for you.