I believe Gramps knew it would be his last Christmas.  Though only a child and not privy to the details, the hidden evidences of his illness seemed to lurk in the corners.  Gramps loved me.  He was my Grandma Mimi’s second husband.  People considered him a little too tough, maybe even mean; but only with grown ups.  With my sister and me, he just loved us.  We knew, and everyone could tell.  That’s just how things were.  Mimi and Gramps were not really poor, but they watched every penny.  That year he let us pick whatever we wanted out of the Sears catalogue.

Mimi and Gramps lived in a little pink house on “U” Street in Vancouver, Washington.  The front yard was carefully kept with a small lawn and big Rhodies, but not stiff to make you stay on the sidewalk.  There was a one-car garage that smelled of old, dry wood.  The brown walls on the inside of the garage were comfortable to a workingman.  Bare studs, perfect for big galvanized nails you could hang things on.  Gas cans and an old push mower waiting their turn in the corner.  Just enough tools on the workbench to jerry rig broken things around the house.  Cobwebs in dusty windows hung way up high if you were nine.  Mimi kept a freezer in the garage.  As far as I knew, the only thing in it was vanilla ice cream.  There was also a big three wheeled bicycle with a basket on the back and a late sixties Buick Rebel.  The garage was mostly Gramps’ territory except for the freezer. 

In the basement, down the steep wood stairs, under the light of not enough uncovered bulbs was the laundry.  A big oil-burning furnace with a monstrous round tank on short legs sat next to the water heater in the corner.  Both of them made strange noises at you when you came down alone.  They also whispered undecipherable warnings in the middle of the night if you were awake.  I wasn’t really afraid of them, just wary.  Shelves and shelves of canned food lined the cool concrete walls.  The basement earned enough of Mimi’s attention to stay clean and tidy.  It was still the kind of place I didn’t want to go without leaving the door open and knowing that someone knew where I was. 

The back yard existed in two segments.  On the East side of the walkway towered a big apple tree and the grass.  On the West side the garden grew behind a short fence.  In the grass, Gramps and I fished with sticks and string in an old zinc washtub.  When I got tired of fishing, I swam in it.    Until then, we sat in the heat on aluminum-framed chairs with faded, rainbow colored, nylon webbing.  We drank root beer from real glass bottles that sat warming on an old red metal end table.  Gramps just smiled and gave me tips on the fish. 

The back porch provided sanctuary in the summer time.  He sat with me and cut apple slices with his bone-handled pocketknife.  One for me, one for him, one for me, one for him, back and forth until the apple was just a skinny core.  Then a short walk over to the garden compost heap hand in hand with the core stuck on the end of his knife.  We stood there looking at the garden, appraising its growth, just hanging out.  Then he flicked the core onto the compost pile.  It happened slowly, like a ritual.  Mainly we just stood together or sat together or walked around together.  My little hand filling his knarled, lined arthritic hand.  My hand untried, soft and weak; his scarred, calloused and work hardened.

Usually, Mimi brought us lunch on the back porch.  We ate on an old redwood picnic table with a blue and white flowered vinyl tablecloth.  The benches were hard to get into and they wobbled even when you sat still.  I never did.  She made tuna with pickles and onions and mustard, deviled eggs, coleslaw and a big, watery bowl of carrots, celery and radishes from the garden.  She always provided BBQ potato chips and more root beer.  Mimi missed the health food movement.  Or maybe she ignored it.  Her recipes were filled with butter, oil, gravy, sugar and salt.  The garden balanced everything though.  She served lots of vegetables. 

After lunch Gramps and I tended to the garden.  I used a kid’s sized hoe and he a big one.  I think mine was a regular one with half the handle cut off and filed down.  He carefully dug up the weeds and threw them in a rusty old wheelbarrow.  I followed behind whacking the ground with my stubby hoe.  He gave me directions and pointed out weeds he had “missed.”  Nothing ever died in his garden.  He knew exactly what every plant needed and when, from pickup loads of manure to marigolds for slug defense.  Everything produced.  He grew big, fat tomatoes, sweet yellow corn, crispy green beans, sour rhubarb, heavy orange pumpkins with prickly stems, lettuce, squash, peas and dozens of other vegetables.  Gramps’ garden supplied food for he and Mimi, all his grandkids and his neighbors.  Though not easily classified as a kind man, his devotion to the garden that blessed so many revealed a significant part of his character.

Gramps and I always ate vanilla ice cream and watched Portland wrestling after dinner.  He taught me how to mix it into a milk shake after it melted just a bit.  “Ruth, bring us some milk,” he would say.  In would come Mimi and pour just a little into each of our bowls.  Not a word spoken.  After the ice cream was gone, I would move from his lap to the floor and play with the dog, Boo.  Boo was a little black curly haired yipper.  The kind of dog my dad hated.  He could get up to 30mph it seemed like, chasing a little rubber squeaky bone, in about 12 feet.  If someone knocked on the screen door, he barked so hard and so fast I thought his head would pop off.  I never knew how he died.  Maybe his head did pop off.  Gramps loved the dog too.

When I got sleepy, Mimi would come get me from Gramps lap and take me to the spare bedroom.  The bed was hard as concrete and the comforter wasn’t comfortable.  The fat, resilient pillow bent my neck ninety degrees.  I tried to fall asleep quick so I didn’t have to interpret the mutterings of the furnace.  If Mandy was there too, we usually wrestled for ownership of the most blankets; though the gigantic bed could hold six more kids with room to spare.  Once asleep, morning came immediately. 

Breakfast at Mimi’s was my favorite meal.  I say Mimi’s because Gramps had a much smaller role in the kitchen than in the rest of the house.  Mimi was the boss.  I remember three things about breakfast with Mimi.  The big chrome toaster produced a limitless supply of English muffins at Mimi’s coaxing.  She let me have as much butter as I wanted.  A big glass pitcher full of fresh orange juice and fried eggs sunny side up with lots of pepper rounded out the meal.  This was another time where not much was said.  Mimi cooked and served; Gramps and I sat and ate.  It wasn’t a strained silence, “please pass the…” “Thank you Ruth” and “thank you Mimi” were heard easily.  We were just comfortable in our roles. 

That last Christmas season, Gramps wanted Mandy and I to pick our Christmas presents out of the Sears catalogue.  He told us in July, so we spent months agonizing over our choices.  Mom wanted us to pick from the lower priced items but Gramps politely requested that she let us have free reign of the catalogue.  Mom and Gramps had an understanding.

One time Gramps lost his temper and yelled at my mom.  She told him he wasn’t allowed to do that, piled us into the car and left.  We drove around for a while while mom cooled off. When we pulled back up to the curb, they were both waiting on the sidewalk looking worried.  They hurried up to the car apologizing.  Gramps promised never to yell at mom again.  He never did.

That year, mom drove the bus for our school in exchange for tuition.  Her route went right past Gramps and Mimi’s house.  So once a week or so, she dropped us off for the afternoon.  Gramps was not very active in the garden both because it was getting late in the year and because he was tired a lot.  We spent most of our time sitting in his lap mulling over the pages of the catalogue.  We talked about everything they offered.  He wanted to know why we wanted it and what we would use it for.  He never once told us that a choice was good or bad.  He just wanted to know what we thought.  Sometimes he fell asleep while we sat there.  Once all three of us did.  Mom came after it got dark and gathered us up to carry out to the car.  Mimi put a blanket on Gramps and he just kept sleeping.  As Christmas got closer, sometimes we sat on the edge of his bed and talked while we flipped the pages.  We finally decided sometime in early November.  Mom said we better hurry up or it wouldn’t get delivered in time.

Gramps wasn’t feeling very well that Christmas.  He didn’t talk much.  But he hugged us both when we gave him our homemade Popsicle stick presents.  He sat in his chair chuckling while we opened our presents.  I wonder why we were so excited when we knew what was under the wrapping paper?  We spent so much time choosing and discussing with Gramps.  The gifts were from him.  It was the grand finale.  He never went shopping, but he put an unmeasureable amount of time and love into those gifts.  Gramps loved us.

Several years ago, mom gave me a photo album containing a slightly faded picture from that Christmas.  Mandy and I are sitting on Gramps lap, one on each leg, facing each other but looking at the camera.  I’m wearing my new fleece lined jean jacket, sitting up straight with a big, goofy confidant grin.  Mandy is wearing her red and white ruffled party dress and a slight little smile with her curly, red haired head cocked shyly to one side, almost nuzzling Gramps.  Gramps has his arms around us and an easy expression of contentment on his craggy old face.  Gramps really loved us.
 


Comments

Melody Miller
11/06/2010 13:38

Thank you for sharing your childhood memories in child's voice. Your descriptions are so detailed, they put me right back into that little pink house. However, I never "saw" the basement as you did, nor did I know Gramps as you did. You have honored him and his way of life with reciprocal tenderness. It is a good thing I did not read this before I tried to explain who Gramps was in the family history - I might not have evn tried! Great story.

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Cheap Air Jordan link
03/12/2011 22:07

Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves. Do you agree?

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