Perspectives

Looking back on a man's relationship with his grandfather as a young boy. How our perspectives change with time and experience

Perspectives, By Nazca.

 

            Squirming in the leather couch, I felt like a prisoner caught between my need to tell what happened and my inbred need for privacy.

 

"What was it that set you off that day when you walked through the park, Janis?"

           

There was no point in evasiveness; I came here to tell Angel what happened, and she was here to help: "I went for my usual walk though the park yesterday."

           

"Did you run into your little friend?" she asked.

 

"Yes he was there, throwing stones this time." 

 

"What happened?"

 

"I was leaning against the guardrail after throwing a rock into the water when Steven snuck up behind me.  I didn't even hear him.            

"He said: ' Hey mister, you're gonna hurt yourself throwin' them rocks like that.  What you should really do is practice your style. It's not really how far you throw em' that's important. Far is nice, but the real trick is to throw em' far as you can and skip em' as many times as you can without sinkin'.’”

 

"Looking over, the boy had already begun to throw a round stone over the water.  It skipped nine times before sinking.

 

" 'See? That's how old I am -- nine,’ he said laughing, and he ran away, his feet lightly patting the boardwalk."

 

"What did it make you think of?" Asked Angel.

 

"The first thing I thought of as he ran off was how light he seemed to be.  I never even heard him come up behind me.  I looked down at my feet and thought how heavy they've become over the years,” I lifted my head and looked at my tired feet, trying to compare them to little Stevie's (the young boy) hair.

"It was then I tried to focus my thoughts through the perspective of my youth.  The vision was vague; I can't even tell if the obscurity is inherent to the age my thoughts were trying to capture, or if my life itself pulled me so far away from any recollection of childhood that I can't even imagine ever being that young.  But just thinking of childhood days still brings back feelings of security -- of safety. The world around you consists of Mom, Dad, school, and (at best) an abstract consciousness that there exists a planet on which we live with out the reality of its vastness or complexity."

 

"Looking at the young playing, doing things we can't any more sometimes takes us back.  Its normal," she replied. 

 

As I shifted in the couch to get more comfortable, Angel pushed her blonde hair sideways across her head, cocking her head sideways as if to ask "And?"

 

"For some reason, I keep thinking of Grandfather.  He was always so private, so proper.  Although he wasn't much for showing emotion, there was no doubt he loved all of us.  He had a strange way of being warm and distant at the same time.  It was like an aura he possessed at all times. 

 

"Grandpa would always write to me on my birthday and holidays. He would even somehow know when I was down and write to me then.  They weren't cards, but formal letters typed on an old fashioned typewriter.  I wish I had a chance to visit, but he was so far away, and I was always involved in something.  I always meant to write back, but I was always so busy growing up.  Except for that one time.  I don't know whether or not he got the letter, but he died soon after I sent it.  I remember feeling that he was waiting for me to write back." 

Angel and I talked a bit about that. Though I really didn’t tell her much.  It was like a part of me didn’t want to remember. 

     **************************** 

 

            Back at my apartment, I take off my shoes and stretch my toes.

Looking at my feet reminds me of Steven.  I look around the room and my eyes stop at a small box of keepsakes lying on the dresser. It's a small box covered with the dust of years of neglect, except for the handprints from where I grabbed it off the shelf this morning.

 

            Why did I pull this thing out anyway?"  As I reach for the box, the phone rings, and the box falls from my hands.  Letters and pictures from long ago falling across the floor.  I look away from the mess, pretending that the ringing phone is more important.  But I can't move, I know those letters are lying there.  The answering machine picks up:

 

            "Janis, this is Angel.  I'm a little concerned with you leaving in the middle of your story.  Call me when you can."

 

            I straighten up and turned my head to the window, looking at the breeze gently bend the tips of the trees down below, and strangely recall the week Aunt Gladys came to visit. The summer before Grandpa died, my aunt spent an entire month with us.  My mother spent a lot of time talking to her when she thought the kids weren't around.

 

            Nosey as I was, I had to know what they were saying.  I'd sneak around the back of the house behind the bushes and sit under the window of the living room where they'd talk.  My feet were very light in those days.  I remember one conversation between them:

 

"Dad is getting old.  He's not the same since Mom died," my Aunt Gladys said.

 

"He misses her," my Mom answered.

 

"Yes, but its more than that.  He's more closed than before," replied Gladys.

 

"He's always been that way.  I know he loves us, but he never told us anything.  He had five daughters who he loved without question, but he never opened up to any of us, did he?"

 

            As my mind floats back from the past I turn and look at the mess on the floor.  It's all there, scattered fragments of my life strewn across the carpet of my room.  Picking up the papers, I come across the last letter I received from Grandfather. Ironically, I received it on the day he died.  I began to read the letter and remembered that day.  When I found out, I went up to my room quietly, determined not to cry in front of everyone (I knew he would never cry in front of anyone).  I opened up the letter he sent, and began reading it.  As I was halfway through the letter, I noticed my Mom standing behind me crying.  At the time I really didn't think anything of it; I just assumed she was upset at losing her father like I was.  I remember her talking to my father later smiling and saying that it was ok, her father got what he always wanted, just not the way he expected it….  I didn’t understand then.

Reading the last lines of the letter, I begin to understand the letter from my mother's perspective:  On the bottom of the letter he wrote by hand (not typed, which was atypical for him) a farewell, "Remember, son, that I love you and always will."  

 

            I look at the phone and dial Angel's number, feeling tears roll down my face.  Not 'grandson,' but 'son.'  I knew he loved us all, but I never realized what I meant to him.  I like to imagine he got that last letter from me.  He wanted a son. 

 

"Angel, he wanted a son."

 

 

 

 

                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Let me know what you think... Its a bit about me and others pulled into it....

Reviews

[Liza]

insightful lines into the way you interpreted life without consciousness at one point...seems like the little boy wanted to emulate the grandfather without the experience in time...

He had a strange way of being warm and distant at the same time.

Far is nice, but the real trick is to throw em' far as you can and skip em' as many times as you can without sinkin'.’”

[Chellie]

This was beautiful and well written. It made me cry at the end. But the first half of this was a tad bit confusing for me. I wasn't really sure what was going on. Maybe you should ellaborate what's going on a little more. But I really like this.