Walking the Wall

I thought about my grandpa last night while going to sleep, I am not
sure why as he died when I was seven or eight years old.  I
remember the night he died, a lot of the cousins were at my
grandparents house while our mom’s were up at the hospital. We were all
in a big bed together not sure what was happening or why or what being
dead really meant. It was an odd combination of slumber party/funeral
feelings because we really couldn’t understand it. For months after he
died, none of us would sit on his spot on the couch–and we all sat in
a row with the Sunday football game on in case he wanted to watch even
though he was dead. I loved my grandpa very much and his death was my
first experience with what it meant to die. But while my memories are
fragmented and likely formed into more myth than reality…

*I remember my grandpa hiding
behind the bushes on Halloween and holding his dentures through the
bushes, snapping them at us as we came up to the house.
*He was a tall, blond, handsome man, full German with a smile that lights up even old black and white photos.
*He broke his nose a number of times, once from falling off the roof of
the house, so by the time he was older and my grandpa instead of a
tall, blond, handsome man–he looked like Popeye.
*He loved to fish and one day he brought back a huge turtle, the shell
big enough for me to sit in when it was cleaned up and we made turtle
soup out of it.
*There was a low wall rock wall running up the side walk to their house
that his father had hand made–my older brother fell and hurt himself
on the wall and my grandpa took a sledgehammer to it. There was no rock
wall by the time I could walk for me to fall and hurt myself on.
*My grandfather loved children with a passion, many of the pictures of
him that come to mind are those of him holding one or the other of his
grandchildren.
*He made the most wonderfully ornate and decorated Christmas cookies that my mother deemed more art than food.
*I remember visiting him in the mental institution before he died. He
had been given medication that we later found out he couldn’t have due
to his disease and the reaction put him there. He was still my grandpa
though, and my brother and I didn’t really think it was odd–instead of
snapping dentures there was a really nice man there that collected
squares of toilet paper (NOT my grandfather).
*I remember hunting for worms with my cousin Johnny early in the morning for grandpa to take fishing with him.
*He liked home made banana ice cream–it seems every time we went to
their house the cousins would be taking turns cranking the handle of
the ice cream maker.
*Did I mention his smile? He died close to thirty years ago and I was so young, but I remember his smile like it was yesterday.