April 8, 2004

  • Old Grandfather Tree


    The Wise One


    My friend had an elderly grandfather who died one day when we were out playing.  When his mother told us, we were but nine or ten, why a police car and an ambulance was making their way down our street we wanted to go in and see the old man one last time.   We all have grandfather's even if it is for only a moment of conception but this man was extraordinary; he was wise, he was gentle, he was the sage of the earth and the Sun we revolved around, and he had set forever.  My friend's mother said no we couldn't see the body and with that short word our quest for knowledge of life and death ended.  From this point forward I would never trust adults.  From this point on I would never believe in death.  Oh I know the body expires but the claptrap surrounding heaven (we all know there is no hell other than the one we can create on earth) is bunk.  I always have my friends grandfather with me, always.  The whirlwind of activity that enveloped my buddy and his family for the next week or so was as cleansing as a tornado; creative destruction leaving only the firm foundations and ashes to grieve by.


    As I remember back to my childhood and those that touched me I find I have trouble remembering faces, recalling the way we interacted; memory reduced to a painting like experience hanging in my mind to be viewed but with little understanding which can be gleaned from the portrait there.  One day last fall I was walking by the train station and I saw a stump and found my Grandfather Tree.  All the memories came back, all the smells, all the laughter and that day of deep little understood sadness.  My friends Grandfather stared out at me from behind the thin shoots of hair, gnarled and knotted, toothless and obscene.


    We smiled at each other and I walked on knowing my friend's grandfather would always be with me.