He sits on the deck off the back of the house staring forward with a distant gaze, the world moving fast forward around him, but he remains still and acknowledges little. Still the center of conversation and the admiration of most he is but a shell of the man he once was.
Fifty plus year ago this man met a woman with several children already, can’t say they fell in love at first sight but how they must have loved each other to take on life that was already operating at a pace most of us view from afar. They went on to have children together making a dozen, yes a dozen children, all girls but three.
Early morning coffee in hand he heads out the door to begin the day. Working at a local mail delivery service courier, he still is at full speed, whether it is customer assistance or aiding a fellow employee, he was always the go to guy. Driving home he still has work with him to be delivered in route to his destination.
His second job begins around five o’clock, his hand in the preparation of dinner or taking one or another of the children to one or another function. He may need to assist in a project or homework or a repair around the house. Holidays he also finds time to create handmade gifts and to decorate the family home with flare to compete with the neighbors of the most lights and animated decorations on the lawn.
It’s the weekend and he gets up at sunrise to begin the stuffing of things to do before the house opens and the children poor out or the door bell rings. The lawn has to be mowed, the pool cleaned and he still finds time to hit the garage to dabble in his love for crafts. As with the most he did, his crafting was unbelievable, stained glass and macramé plant hangers and figures, little village buildings for grandmother’s holiday town display or the train that operates around the base of the Christmas tree.
Summer vacations now include grandchildren and trips to places like Cape Cod, the Grand Cannon or a trip to Maine. He makes sure all is supplied and the Winnebago camper is fully loaded and the pop up section is not in need of repair. He even washes the cloths at the river bed; imagine that, a task one would only read about in a history book.
As the years pass he still does not falter from being the one everyone counts on, he remains ever constant, the center of conversations and functions and at times if he is not there they seem a bit empty.
His love has now passed, he is alone, he becomes more and more withdrawn and now his life has jumped off the fast lane of the highway to the breakdown lane looking for assistance.
My grandfather once the center of the universe for so many now suffers from old age and onset Alzheimer’s. He will always remain constant; loving, caring, motivated, strong, funny dependable and the list could go on and on. Even though he seems vacant at a glance I know he remains forever the man and not the shell.
Verb tenses get screwed up here, leading to confusion. B y grafs 3 & 4 I was starting over and explaining to myself that the present tense I was reading was not the present tense of graf 1 but actually more in line with the past tense of graf 2. That's why god made italics--so big chunks of material can be set off in any tense you want but still clearly demarked from other material.
ReplyDeleteThat said and out of the way, this is a very attractive profile or protrait--you have a nice feel here for what to include and how much and you work your feelings in in a way that is accessible and not icky to the reader (too much feeling can make readers feel icky uncomfortable--but not here.)
The first and last grafs, the framing grafs, are particularly canny writing, really opening with a bang and closing with a melancholy sigh, just right for the subject matter.