Swimmin' with Grandpa
Today would have been Grandpa's birthday.
I didn't realize this until Grandma told me about it when I was sitting at her kitchen table. What makes this odd is that last night I had a terrible dream about him, and also about her, about loss and longing and letting go - or rather, how utterly impossible these things can sometimes be. The dream was to terrible to tell. It was bad enough that it was still on my mind by the time I had arrived at her house this morning.
Before we lost him - this was probably about 18 months ago - one afternoon I was sitting beside them in the cancer ward at Cascade Valley Hospital while he was getting his chemo drip. We were talking, for some reason, about swimming. Or trying to. It was hard to talk sometimes. I never knew whether he couldn't hear or whether he couldn't understand. He just had this kind of permanent bewilderment about him by then.
I asked him, "You know who taught me to swim?"
He shook his head as if to say no.
"You did, Grandpa."
He looked at Grandma as if to say, what did she say?
"Harold!" Grandma said, "She said, 'You did!' You taught her!"
"I did?"
"Yes, Grandpa!"
"Don't you remember, Harold?"
He shook his head to say no, but looked regretful as he did so. I wasn't bothered that he didn't remember. That wasn't the point. The point is that I remember.