You Gotta Die of Something.

Kind of continuing my memorialization of my departed grandfather here.

On one of the frequent occasions I visited my grandparents in Eastern Washington, Dad, Grandad, and I set out to do some errand in Grandad’s pickup (what and where exactly has escaped me.) My father, silently jealous of my grandfather’s pickup truck, insisted on driving, leaving my skinny frame wedged between the bear-like masses of the two paterfamiliases on the truck’s bench seat. As we cruised around the myriad residential streets, a group of kids came riding their bikes down the middle of the lane, oblivious to everyone around. Dad always had disparaging comments about any non-motorized traffic that had the audacity to cross into his path of travel and would mutter choice words questioning a particular offender’s parentage, intelligence, upbringing or all three. Today was no different, and as the bicycling children (who were the same age as I was at the time) eventually gave way, my dad said something to the tune of, “That’s right, put your bike right into the middle of the street, your mom will never notice you were gone, kid,” and then adding as an aside to me, “I hope you don’t do that, son.” Grandad, who always had some kind of comment to add to any statement, elbowed me and said, “Well, you gotta die of somethin’,” then gave me a wink.

The last time I saw my grandfather was around Christmas of 2010. We visited the same house he had lived in all my life. It was a place where a percentage of my childhood memories were formed – we visited at least twice a year and usually stayed for about a week. But it was the first time I had been back at that house since I turned 30, and visiting stirred up a confluence of emotions for me. A few years prior, on a different Christmas gathering at my Aunt Susan’s house, I joked with her that her place always seemed bigger when I was a kid. That feeling was no different at Grandpa’s: it felt like I was in a miniaturized version of that house, everything felt smaller, yet I knew I was the one who had changed. As my youngest daughter played with her great-grandfather, I wandered a little as memories flooded back to me, only overlaid through the filter of the present. I saw the stone fireplace that gave me a scar across my eyebrow and invoked a permanent “no running in the house” rule. The kitchen that never seemed to run out of food. The living room with grandpa’s recliner and the carpet I remember drawing patterns into with my fingers.

I’m gonna miss that house.