Of Memory and Remembrance

My grandfather leaned slightly forward on his cane as he shuffled down the dark hallway. He was wearing a turquoise blue suit and his feet were bare. In the hand not holding his cane, he carried a pair of dark dress shoes. He shuffled into the living room and took his usual seat, a slightly passive maneuver in which he appeared to slowly lower himself until gravity took over and pulled him into the couch with a gentle fall.

Grandpa set his shoes on the ground next to the couch and leaned forward, both hands on his cane, his head hung down. After a minute he leaned forward, pulled a pair of bright blue socks, which matched his dress shirt, out of his pocket and began putting them on.

“What time is the funeral?” he asked and a wave of sadness crashed over me.

“It was two days ago,” my great Uncle Darrell called loudly from across the room. “On Wednesday.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” said my Grandpa. He paused and looked down at himself. “What am I getting all dressed up for?”

No one answered.

***

The room where the hotel sat up the breakfast buffet was strangely crowded on Christmas morning. Retirees and families with young children cramped around small tables. No one talked to Jen and me as we sleepily foraged for food, me trying to get the waffle machine to stop beeping and Jen searching out a healthy box of cereal buried amongst the pyramid of mini-boxes of fruit loops and corn pops.

We had flown into Nevada the day before, which the official calendar labeled Christmas Eve, but had been rebranded this year simply as Two Days After my Grandmother Died. My grandparents' house, a place that had been my childhood all-inclusive resort, had slowly filled up with relatives. For the first time in my life, I found myself staying at a motel in their hometown.

It was a shock to be back in Nevada and the void that my grandmother left behind was huge. I remembered how she felt so frail when I had hugged her for the last time back in May. She was so small and thin. I also remembered the sharp tug of pain on my scalp during the childhood haircuts she used to give me. Her strong fingers, which had been trained at beauty school, impatiently tugged my cowlicks as she trimmed my hair.

I would squirm.

“Did I hurt you?” She would always ask and I would shake my head no, and she would continue pulling and parting my hair as she snipped it with scissors.

***

That afternoon, two days after the funeral, we drove up to the cemetery. Grandpa sat in the passenger seat and Dad drove. Getting out of the car, we unfolded Grandpa’s walker from the trunk and insisted that he use it to walk over the grass.

The grave site was flat, squares of sod covered what had been a rectangular hole only two days before. The flowers which sat on top of Grandma’s coffin at the funeral now lay on the grass, slowly wilting. Jen took a picture of us looking down at the site.

The funeral home had placed a small placard on the ground next to the flowers. “Temporary Marker,” it said, followed by my Grandma’s name. “Serentiy LC, Lot 52145, Concrete Liner,” it concluded callously. The barren mountains of the Nevada desert could be seen in the distance.

Grandpa looked silently for a moment. “She was a wonderful wife,” he said abruptly, his voice breaking quietly. “She’s left me, but that’s not her fault, she had a weak heart.”

The ocean of sadness that I had been wading in all week swelled and crashed into me again. I struggled, unsuccessful as always, to hold back my tears.

“Oh sure, we had our ups and downs, but we always worked things out. We had a lot of wonderful times. She was a good woman,” Grandpa said. Tears formed behind his glasses and I could see his eyes were red. I looked away. Before this week I had never seen my Grandfather cry.

“You have to keep those good times and remember them,” my dad said, hugging his father.

I watched the blinking radio antennae lights on top of the mountain behind the mortuary.

***

In the picture, the young couple is sitting in the park. In front of them, a tow-headed boy of about three or four grins. The man has his shirt off and the woman is wearing a broad and modest swimsuit top.

The first thing I notice when I look at the picture is how good looking the couple is. Then I see the familiar pattern under the surface of the movie star couple: the eyes and high cheekbones of the woman, the chin and mischievous smile of the man. These strangers, who appear to be younger than myself, are my grandparents. The smiling boy wearing suspenders without a shirt is my dad.

The next thing I notice about the picture is how muscular the young man - my Grandfather - is. A mix of following the Charles Atlas plan and working as a welder has given him the type of muscles that you only see in magazines and movies. His arms look powerful and I wonder momentarily what this tough guy would think of me at his age: a stocky book nerd. I don’t wonder very long because even in this faded black and white image, I can see it. In that grainy smile, there’s a sense of his gentleness and of a good natured personality that are so tied up in my mind with the concept of “Grandfather” that I always feel a bit awed to know that’s what everyone sees in him.

***

The TV was on that evening, as it always was as my grandparents grew older. I smiled to myself as I remembered how my grandma used to like to watch Walker, Texas Ranger. “Chuckie-Baby!” she would call the star.

My dad sat in a chair across the room reading the newspaper, everyone else had gone to sleep. I sat on the couch next to Grandpa. He watched whatever it was tuned to, although it was hard to know if he was following the show or if he was somewhere else, lost in his personal fog. I sat there, dreading the approaching moment when I would say goodnight and thus goodbye as I was flying out early the next morning.

“Will,” Grandpa said suddenly, “Did your Grandmother pass on?”

The ocean of sadness was in me now, behind my eyes.

“Yeah, Grandpa, she died earlier this week.”

“Oh, that’s what I thought.”

“The funeral was a couple of days ago, on Wednesday,” I said. “You dressed up really nice in a suit and Mom gave the eulogy. Lots of people came from your old Church and Luther and Joanne got up and talked about Grandma. We went out and visited her grave today.”

I handed him the stack of pictures that Jen and I had rush-developed that evening. Grandpa took that stack and looked at images of himself looking at Grandma’s grave, of the flowers and the temporary marker.

He looked for a minute longer and then sat the pictures down.

“She was a good woman,” he paused. “I miss her.”

“I miss her too,” I said.

***

Shortly after the pastor finished the closing prayer, the funeral director stepped forward. “This concludes our graveside services,” he said. “It’s important to talk about her, especially to the young ones, so they will remember her.”

I thought about my Grandma’s lemon pie, something my Mom had mentioned in the eulogy. Lemon pie was something she always made when we visited.

“It’s too tart,” Grandma would inevitably complain after taking a bite.

“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Grandpa would always answer.