A quote: “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~~ Melody Beattie
I’ll start with a story …
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“I’m scared. Grandpa wants to ‘go home’ and gets mad if I tell him this is home now.”
Dr. Jason was patient, “Home is in his head. Next time just ask him when he wants to go. He’ll soon calm down and move on.”
“It hurts, to watch him not know me anymore. Yesterday he was telling me about his dog Pepper. That was his childhood dog!”
“Let him tell his stories. Understand that the past is real for him, he’s living it.”
Later that week I remembered something I could try.
Grandpa was in the dayroom but ignoring the small groups engaged in activities around him. I pulled up a chair across from him, setting guitar cases on either side. His eyes were riveted on my hands as I opened them, and placed one in his hands. I took mine and gently strummed the opening chord.
His hands moved with precision and suddenly I was 12 again, performing with my grandpa who looked at me with recognition and pride as he started to sing … “Almost heaven, West Virginia” and I joined in, “Blue ridge mountains, Shenandoah river.”
The dayroom fell silent, heads turning towards us, smiling and joining in on the chorus “Country roads, take me home … To the place I belong …” A joyful sound that brought others in from the hallways.
I spotted Dr. Jason in the doorway, he smiled broadly at me and I tipped my head at him.
“Take me home, country roads … Take me home, country roads.”
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe stock standard license
Lloyd says: Something for your readers….a little piece I wrote awhile back:
COUNTRY ROADS
Time-weathered old barns,
With sagging ridgelines and tilting silos;
Sliding doors askew on bent and rusted tracks.
Battered mailboxes, posted in rusty milk cans;
No names…no numbers…Chicory grows nearby;
“Blue-eyed girls”…Waiting for the mail!
Overalled boys, with no shoes;
Fishing poles in hands…dogs tagging alongside;
Off on an adventure.
Pretty, freckle-faced girls, riding bicycles;
Dressed in calico and cut-off denim,
Out looking for the boys!
Old folks dozing in porch rockers;
Their working days and child-rearing days over,
They rock back to pleasant memories.
A badly rusted 1952 Ford coupe
Sits on blocks behind a tar-papered shed;
Beautiful…for the memories it evokes.
Rural natural beauty in a variety of wildflowers;
Dandelions, Joe Pye weed, Goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace,
Far prettier than any pampered, domesticated stuff.
Farmers and farmhands toiling in fields;
Sweating…but smiling…
Salt of the earth!
Such are the scenes that greet me
As my magical rocking chair transports me
Along familiar back roads of my mind
Wombat Lace says: “Josie?” I called, looking around the garden. For goodness’ sake, she was just here….
“Josie!” I called, a little louder, verging on panic, when I caught the sound her voice.
“Grandpa? Look! See the flower? Grandma showed me. It’s a daisy.I saw a bird. There was a squirrel in the yard. Kittycat was trying to get the bird AND the squirrel…” on and on, her lilting voice undeterred by his silence.
He had wanted a grandson so desperately. Someone he could take on fishing trips and go hiking with, or build models, maybe even teach to play the guitar.
But instead of the strapping grandson he’d set his heart on, here was Josie. I understood his disappointment, even as it irritated me. She was healthy and smart and funny. And utterly besotted with Grandpa, who answered her in grunts. I pondered as I put away the garden tools and washed my hands. Did he need therapy? Medication? A swift kick?
“Grandpa? What’s this? Is it yours?” I froze. His beloved Gibson had been in the corner of the living room…
Then, suddenly, the unmistakable strains of “Classical Gas” floating out of the living room, mingled with the shrieks of laughter from Josie, who had just learned the title of the song from Grandpa.
It’s an old picture, but an important one. We’ll definitely put it in the rotation in the digital picture frame in the living room of our new home here on Horse-eye.
It was taken at family reunion over at Cousin Marty’s place, right after Grandpa retired from farming. I would’ve been about six then, getting ready for my first year of big kid school.
Looking back, I know Grandpa was one of the lucky ones. He was able to hold out until retirement age, rather than being pushed out of farming with ten or twenty years left and struggling to earn a living in town jobs. Sure, he and Grandma had to move into town, but they were able to buy a house with a big enough lot that they could have a garden and a little henhouse out back, and the dog could move with them.
But right then I’d been sad knowing there wouldn’t be any more visits to the old home place with the big barn so old it was put together with wooden pegs instead of nails, the huge trees towering over the old farm house that had been the scene of so many Milton family milestones and dramas.
And then Grandpa got out his guitar and started singing the old songs. Not just John Denver and Hank Williams that my young brain considered ancient, but the really old songs the pioneers brought, the oral tradition. “Oh, Susanna.” “Old Dan Tucker.” “Skip to My Lou.”
Eyes misting at the memory, I look out the window at our neighborhood, at Cool Spot hanging in the sky like the red dot on the pop bottles Grandpa always had around the old home place. Here in our house, I can adjust the lighting to match what Sol gave us back on Earth, but out there the streetlights can only do so much with the weak red light of a sun that never sets.
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