"I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather...
Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car." (Will Shriner)
My grandfathers were the first people to come to mind on All Soul's Day. It seems like they were radically different people. I guess they had one thing in common: They both had really white hair. I hope when my hair changes colors it's the same pure shade of white.
Most of my memories of my maternal grandfather are from when he was in the VA Hospital towards the end of his days. He passed away when I was six, and when he was alive he lived five or six hours away, so I didn’t get to see him often. But all the memories I do have, I cherish. There are pictures of me sitting in his lap while he read me the newspaper, sitting in his lap on the porch, swinging in his tree swing, or curled up asleep in his big green chair. I don’t remember any of these moments, but I remember feeling loved. I associate him with circus peanuts. I don’t have any specific recollection of him ever giving me a circus peanut, but I know that he must have with every visit because to this day whenever I see a bag of circus peanuts photographic images of him float through the back of my mind. I also think of him every time I am offered a thumbprint cookie. I remember being five years old and helping my mother bake thumbprint cookies before a trip to the VA Hospital. She mixed the dough and rolled out the cookies. I supplied the thumbprint, and she filled the hole with jelly then baked them. I remember carrying a giant plastic container full of yellow apricot and grape purple cookies into the lobby and offering all the nurses and attendants cookies. I loved the attention and compliments. Papa couldn’t actually eat the cookies because of the breathing tubes. These were the old days, when children weren’t allowed up in the rooms. I don’t know why we were banned from the rooms - maybe they thought we’d be traumatized, maybe they thought it wasn’t healthy for the patients, who knows. My parents had to take turns watching me hand out cookies in the lobby while they each took a turn up in the room with Papa. When there were no more cookies I got taken outside to the grounds, held up underneath a familiar third story window, and told to wave. I waved more emphatically once I spotted the hands waving back down at me through the curtains. Other visits I recall running around the grounds playing tag with my cousins, also too young to be allowed in the room for a visit. My mother lost Papa in 1976, but I lost him years before thanks to those hospital regulations.
I could write a book about my paternal grandfather. Actually, somebody ought to write a book about him; he was a real character. I loved him dearly because he could always make me laugh. Whether it was from stealing my dinner rolls then blaming it on my grandmother (surefire amusement for a six year old) or offering to spray down my boyfriend’s bushy beard with chigger spray for my protection (well, it amused me), he was always up to something. My favorite story involves one of his favorite pastimes - sitting at the counter at the Donut King in Odgensburg eavesdropping on conversations then butting in with unwanted advice. If anyone railed at him he would raise his eyebrows with a confused and hurt expression and apologetically protest, “Hey, I’m just a concerned citizen!” Someone actually bought him a baseball cap that said “Concerned Citizen” so that he could just point. Maybe that’s apocryphal, but I could totally picture him doing it.
My grandfathers were the first people to come to mind on All Soul's Day. It seems like they were radically different people. I guess they had one thing in common: They both had really white hair. I hope when my hair changes colors it's the same pure shade of white.
Most of my memories of my maternal grandfather are from when he was in the VA Hospital towards the end of his days. He passed away when I was six, and when he was alive he lived five or six hours away, so I didn’t get to see him often. But all the memories I do have, I cherish. There are pictures of me sitting in his lap while he read me the newspaper, sitting in his lap on the porch, swinging in his tree swing, or curled up asleep in his big green chair. I don’t remember any of these moments, but I remember feeling loved. I associate him with circus peanuts. I don’t have any specific recollection of him ever giving me a circus peanut, but I know that he must have with every visit because to this day whenever I see a bag of circus peanuts photographic images of him float through the back of my mind. I also think of him every time I am offered a thumbprint cookie. I remember being five years old and helping my mother bake thumbprint cookies before a trip to the VA Hospital. She mixed the dough and rolled out the cookies. I supplied the thumbprint, and she filled the hole with jelly then baked them. I remember carrying a giant plastic container full of yellow apricot and grape purple cookies into the lobby and offering all the nurses and attendants cookies. I loved the attention and compliments. Papa couldn’t actually eat the cookies because of the breathing tubes. These were the old days, when children weren’t allowed up in the rooms. I don’t know why we were banned from the rooms - maybe they thought we’d be traumatized, maybe they thought it wasn’t healthy for the patients, who knows. My parents had to take turns watching me hand out cookies in the lobby while they each took a turn up in the room with Papa. When there were no more cookies I got taken outside to the grounds, held up underneath a familiar third story window, and told to wave. I waved more emphatically once I spotted the hands waving back down at me through the curtains. Other visits I recall running around the grounds playing tag with my cousins, also too young to be allowed in the room for a visit. My mother lost Papa in 1976, but I lost him years before thanks to those hospital regulations.
I could write a book about my paternal grandfather. Actually, somebody ought to write a book about him; he was a real character. I loved him dearly because he could always make me laugh. Whether it was from stealing my dinner rolls then blaming it on my grandmother (surefire amusement for a six year old) or offering to spray down my boyfriend’s bushy beard with chigger spray for my protection (well, it amused me), he was always up to something. My favorite story involves one of his favorite pastimes - sitting at the counter at the Donut King in Odgensburg eavesdropping on conversations then butting in with unwanted advice. If anyone railed at him he would raise his eyebrows with a confused and hurt expression and apologetically protest, “Hey, I’m just a concerned citizen!” Someone actually bought him a baseball cap that said “Concerned Citizen” so that he could just point. Maybe that’s apocryphal, but I could totally picture him doing it.