I sorta missed Cinco de Mayo, which is pretty okay with me. I never really got a chance to enjoy it as an adult because when I was fifteen, my Grumps passed away on this day, and that has left a forever-mark.
The sensation of the thick fold of the 90s bootcut jeans I was attempting to pry out of my bottom dresser drawer that day is forever forged into my fingertips because it was at that moment that my dad walked into my bedroom and told me that Grumps was gone.
I was in the process of getting ready for school, and on top of that, it was Game Day, so I couldn’t stop. I had about two minutes to digest that information, and then it was a scramble to get dressed, eat breakfast and drive to school. I don’t remember any of that, but I know I plowed through on autopilot.
Somehow, I made it through all the usual tenth grade classes, activities and social drama for the day — but when I missed a grounder to left field at the end of our softball game, I finally lost it.
I might have been able to navigate even that, but we had a pretty [hm… there are a lot of words I could insert here and I can’t think of a flattering version to use so I’ll just let you use your imagination] ____ coach, and by the time he’d screamed obscenities at me in front of everyone in attendance and chased me in from the outfield, I couldn’t hold tears in any longer. The result: the bench for the remainder of the game where I could— finally — digest the fact that Grumps had gone and I couldn’t say good-bye.
We’d gone to the hospital, of course. When it’s like that, you never know when the last time will be. But I think I knew, because from somewhere high above, I can still see myself standing next to his hospital bed, knowing he was there. I can see his arm, in my memory, and maybe the hint of his head turned toward me. I was still shy back then, never sure of what to say out loud. I feel like maybe I touched his hand.
I really hope I did.
What is more clear to me is the memory of myself in a very small waiting room. Alone. The chairs were the usual waiting room fare, these particular ones upholstered in a deep merlot. It’s actually the color that I most associate with going to church with Mim and Grumps — the pews were this same color, almost as if they’d been dyed with the grape juice that came in tiny plastic cups via large, brass communion trays. The ones that caught the low-light in the sanctuary; the ones that Grumps held so steadily so Mim could procure a small cup for each of us children; the same little plastic cups we loved to run and collect post-service.
I see myself sitting in that waiting room, as if I were somehow outside of myself and standing in the doorway looking down over my own shoulder. I am writing.
My Mim kept the poem, the many years she lived without him. I spoke of “Mim and Grumps’ House” — the home that was (is?) the very heart of me. How the stately grandfather clock Grumps had built grew tired and its steady rhythm and hum slowed and stopped — something I’d thought impossible.
Its deep and certain tick-tock had been a constant in my world — as though it would go on and on and on… forever. Chiming the hour; greeting me whenever I burst jubilantly through the front door; always the last sound I heard as I drifted off to the Land of Nod in my little pink back bedroom that had once been Auntie’s.
I wrote a poem because my words are always within — almost never external to myself. I find I’m realizing only now how accurate those words were — how it was Grump’s heart that stopped, just like the grandfather clock. How I associated its stopping with his departure — and, of course, the clock did stop, because Grumps is the one who always wound it.
I’d seen him do it a million times, with his leather gloves and careful touch. But it somehow seemed it should go on and on and on, wound by unseen hands to keep his memory alive; to keep the heart of our very existence beating, a metronome by which our days — my words — would be measured and metered: precise, yet organic; austere, yet warm; certain… now failing.
I really kinda despise softball. I suppose it’s no one’s fault, but Cinco de Mayo, softball and that particular coach are somehow all muddled up into this memory of my Grumps.
Which actually makes me a little angry. Because my Grumps was the most intelligent man I’ve probably ever known. A civil engineer, he worked for Boeing, FEMA and rounded out his career at the Pentagon. He was one of those rare individuals who could waltz with you in the living room one moment, design and create a rocking horse from scratch in his carpentry workshop the next, discuss politics in depth after dinner and recount just about any and every random fact there was to know… all while doing advanced mathematics in his head and composing poetry.
Did I mention he could make a mean cherry pie and is the creator of my mom’s forever-favorite fudge? He was an artist as well, having painted countless watercolors, yet somehow he still had time to attend all my art shows, recitals and sporting events. Even awards ceremonies. And still listen to Dan Rather in his blue la-z-boy after dinner, steaming coffee in the deep blue Williamsburg pottery mug.
I miss him. And I really don’t think that his memory belongs anywhere within the vicinity of 90s high school softball or [especially] Coach What’s-His-Name, or even the flippant American version of Cinco de Mayo.
And then there’s the part of me that can see him sneaking behind Mim’s back at dinnertime and sticking his dental appliance out at us to make us laugh and point while Mim feigned confusion; and the part of me that sees him “sword” fighting all of us littles from his armchair; and the part of me that sees him doing his best Tevye If I were a rich man dance across the living room carpet, arms poised mid-air, head back, knees bent, eyes gleaming with life —
And I wonder if somehow his sense of humor has gotten the best of us all and he’d really just want us to throw on a sombrero, toast the life he worked so hard to bless us with and finally wind the grandfather clock again, allowing its gentle rhythms to fill the ebb and flow of our days… Cinco de Mayo or not.
Note: Thank you so much for taking the time to share in my thoughts! This is the best way I have found to process all of these memories that rise and fall within my mind — thank you for your care and support!
He was so proud of his first grandchild. That impish smile as he talked about your antics, followed by you climbing the door sill as your younger brothers looked up in awe. Such memories.