the west
What precisely is happening in this picture, is that my two brothers seen there on the left, are sitting at the kitchen table with my grandfather, just off in the right corner there. Notice the dazed expressions on the boys' faces, how they stare hazily into the foliage which hangs in springs around the window that projects the back yard, down past the long-gone sandbox, the fallen trees and woods to Lake Gilead. On this occasion, however, their attention was much closer focused. Past those dusty windows, bugs long dead and nested in their corners, screens with small holes that let moths flutter around the golden luminescence, sits a bird feeder.
Bluebirds, cardinals, chickadees, and sparrows. Birds that I lackadaisically contemplated in a childhood still feed during the winter. Ducks and geese waddle their way up from the lake, leaving their scratches and pecks in the hard, crunchy snow. Squirrels and chipmunks have a skill of ramming their bodies into the bird feeder, crawling throughout like a mini jungle-gym.
On this particular day, damned were the birds that dared make that pit stop.
My grandfather was diagnosed with Melanoma close to four years ago. It's a skin cancer with a life expectancy of 6 months. He is a hard fighter and was dodging a lot of punches until a car accident knocked him in the hospital and treatments came to a stand still. He's come to terms with life, the fact that it is fleeting, and he hasn't let it put a wrinkle in his day. Notice the view finder that is strapped to whatever type of gun that rests almost caressed in my grandfather's hands? Now, it's nothing I would ever do or support, but he is a man of the woods. Hunter, trapper, fisher -- whatever, it's in his blood. It's an innate part of him and if he can find that thrill by shooting birds out the kitchen window, I highly doubt anyone would want to take that away from him.
Just another day in New York with the family...