Our Heart (5 page)

At seven thirty-two, Grandpa Jake took one last breath and slid silently and painlessly to the other side. Dad and I were still sitting in our chairs, where neither of us had moved in the last two hours. Sometimes, the inner senses can foresee the events to come. I think we both were afraid to get up and leave the room. Neither of us wanted to be gone and have the end happen without being there. When the monitor began the long and drawn-out cry, I felt comfort, not panic. Grandpa had given me plenty of time to accept the inevitable and prepare myself. The doctor entered the room. He didn’t rush and, as he made his way around the bed to where I sat, he laid his hand gently on my shoulder. He put his stethoscope in his ears to listen to Grandpa’s now silent heartbeat. With one last check of Grandpa Jake’s pulse, he walked over to the monitoring machines and shut them off. The silence was deafening.

My father still held on to Grandpa’s hand. He didn’t want to let go, the same as me. Shakily, he rose and leaned over Grandpa. He kissed him on the forehead, while whispering under his breath. I could hear what he said. “Thank you for always being there, Dad. I wish I could have been a better man for you to be proud of. I love you, and I’ll miss you, Dad. Give Mom a hug and tell her I love her too.”

As my father walked towards the door, he wiped the tears from his eyes. The doctor whispered something I couldn’t make out, and my dad nodded in reply. My father was almost out the door, but before he exited he came back to me. My back was turned to him, and I still held onto Grandpa’s hand. He placed both hands on my shoulders and, this time, they brought me comfort and not anger.

With a soft and sincere voice he told me, “I am sorry for your loss and all of the pain I’ve caused you.” It was all he said, and then he turned away and exited the room, leaving me alone to say my own goodbyes. The doctor finished up and kindly told me on his way out that I could have a few moments alone. I thanked him with the only thing I was able to do: I nodded, barely perceptibly, but adequately enough. My voice had become as silent as the room, and when the door closed behind him, I faced the uncertainty of my future.

The room was eerily quiet now, with all of the machines and monitors having been turned off. I could still hear the muffled sounds of people in the halls, and it wouldn’t be long before others came to offer respects and to take care of Grandpa Jake’s body. I was still sitting in the chair, holding on gingerly to his hand. I sat there; I didn’t know what else to do. I searched for words to say goodbye, but they all seemed trite to me and not worth the effort to utter them. I was in the presence of a good man, a grandfather, a friend, and above all, the compass that had guided me when I became lost. He was the connection to this place and all of the memories my life had held here for me. This time I didn’t cry. There would be many more tears to come over the next days, weeks, and throughout the years, as I remembered him and the love he unconditionally gave me. I don’t know why, but at this very moment, the picture memories that entered my head were of my dad and me playing catch in the backyard and one absolutely amazing day at the town’s summer festival. It was the moment when Allison and I first came together. Both events were pivotal points in shaping my life, as I knew it then. Only I didn’t understand then how much they would define me in later years.

Chapter 4

I don’t know why, at this particular time, I would think about Allison and my father, but I could not turn the memories off. I don’t know if there is a pattern to life or not, but right here, right now, at this point in time, I felt as if the world of the past, present, and future was somehow connected. I was but one of the many conduits running through it. It felt right. Why I needed to search my memory and relive those moments I didn’t know. Something about them had left a subtle, but dormant, impact on my psyche, and maybe the death of my grandfather had shaken it loose. Both of those memories were so contrary to the feelings I had watching my grandfather pass away—happy, not sad. Like the ghost of Christmas past, maybe it was Grandpa’s spirit giving me one last comforting thought. I sat there, feeling Grandpa’s hand in mine, and lost myself in the past, while living but an instant in the present.

I was thirteen, and it was the fall of change. Over the summer, I had sprouted a good foot, as my mother told me one day, standing on her toes to look me straight in the eyes. Nothing makes a boy happier than the day he catches his mom and becomes taller than her. Grandma would tell me that I was finally growing into my skin. My fourteenth birthday was still far away and Mom was planning on taking me to get my driver’s permit for a present. A boy and a car, I couldn’t wait. My good friend Nick had the unfortunate luck of being born two days after Christmas. He couldn’t stop complaining about how his younger sister got just as much at Christmas time, all by herself, if not more, than he got combined with his birthday. I’d tell him every year when he started spouting off that it really wasn’t about the presents. It was the fact that it had more to do with his sister being a girl and all. I would kid him about how it was so obvious his folks liked his sister more. Nick would get red in the face to match the color of his Christmas sweater. Finding no breaks from me, he would head off to Matt’s, looking for a more sympathetic ear.

Looking back, I believe there is no better age to be a boy than the years prior to high school, when girls are still a mystery and there isn’t any hurry to begin an investigation. For the most part, they could be temporarily forgotten by indulging in a pick-up game of whatever sport was in season. Girls were always there, lurking in the back of my mind, and the more I dished on a girl, the more everyone knew she was number one on the list of those I’d most want to hold hands with. Alone, and in nighttime dreams, it might even be about whom I really wanted to be the one to share my first kiss with. Adolescent voices begin to crack and change pitch at the most disturbing times. The muscles and body start taking on a more adult form. This would lead to many moments in front of the nearest mirror, posing and performing the best body building poses, sometimes to the hilarious delight of a silent mother who just happened to be passing by. No matter where I was or what I might be in the middle of, there would be times when an intense need to pick things up and show how strong I was, would cloud proper manners and judgment. Arm wrestling with my buddies and throwing rocks along the roadside to see who could throw the farthest became a rite of passage as did seeing who could hit the other one hardest on the arm before crying uncle. It was also the time for trial separations from a mother’s shirttails. Independence never came easy and, for me, it was during this time that I found a new and wonderful relationship with my father. I was becoming a man and Dad treated me as such. I then lost my mother in the midst of it all, only to lose the father I had come to idolize, shortly thereafter. It was the hardest burden to have to bear.

My dad reveled in my growth from adolescence into adulthood. He became more like a best friend rather than just my father. He treated me with more respect and responsibility. When I asked questions about girls, sports, the best way to shave, he’d get a silly smirk and put his arm around me and whisper, so only I could hear what he had to say. I felt like he was sharing all the deep dark secrets one needed to know to become an adult. I couldn’t have loved my dad any more than I did during that period of time. When my life was all about great sports heroes and rock stars, he became the person I most wanted to grow up to be like.

I know Mom felt the shift in my attention giving. If I’d known then how little time I had left with her, I never would have given her the cold shoulder that I did. I was mean to her more times than I want to remember, and yet, she always took it with a smile, at least in my presence. I’m sure she and Dad had many late-night discussions about me and how she could best handle my growing separation from being a “momma’s boy.” He would tell me how important Mom was and how someday I would see God’s infinite wisdom in creating women to both harass and love us. At this comment, he’d laugh and I would too, then he’d lean over and whisper some more of his best kept, secret advice. From him, I learned the best way to get a girl interested in me. The most important thing was to play it real cool after they started to show interest. My father even offered the most secret wisdom of the ancients, how to talk to a girl without stepping all over your tongue.

Football season was in full force, and Dad and I had just spent the afternoon watching the University of Iowa football team beat up on the Michigan Wolverines, which didn’t happen very often. After all of the hooting and hollering, Dad and I had raised the level of male testosterone to a level that became overwhelming for Mom. She did what all mothers do and told her boys to take it outside. Dad and I laughed all the way to the backyard, each of us lightly poking the other and trying to be the last one to swat the other one. As Dad reached down into the storage box where we kept all the balls for the various different sports, he stopped and stood up to face me, holding an old football in one hand. I remember with such vividness the sight of him and the words he conveyed to me. I still recall what they meant to me then and how they make me feel today.

With a seriousness he seldom used with me, he said, “Son, I couldn’t be prouder of the man you are growing up to be. I wasn’t always the best kid growing up, just ask Grandma and Grandpa sometime and they’ll tell you the stories of my youth. Hopefully, they’ve forgotten all the trouble I got into by now, but I doubt it. I see in you all of the things that I’ve done right in this life and, more importantly, I see so much of your mother in you. It only proves to me that even the sun shines in the darkest forest from time to time.”

Our parents always say they are proud of us, but usually it comes at certain times when they think we need our egos boosted. This comment came from my father, out of the blue, and stuck with me my entire life. It was a moment that was made even harder to bear when he went away. As we tossed the football back and forth that late afternoon, I held only admiration for the man who was my father. It was not lost on me the pride he felt for me. It was that notion I tried so desperately to live up to after Mom died, when he started drifting away. Somehow, I always felt I’d done something wrong, and the pride he once had in me had turned into disappointment, instead, and that is why he left me behind.

Sitting here with my grandfather and hearing the goodbye he gave to him, I once again became conscience of those lost feelings for my father. I had as much shut the door on him as he once did on me. I understand better today, the loss I feel for Allison pales in comparison to the pain my dad had to deal with when my mom died. He might not deserve forgiveness for leaving me, but maybe he did deserve my acceptance of the loss he endured for the woman he so dearly loved. It is definitely a feeling I now understand. Trying to seek Allison’s forgiveness is no less than my dad trying to reach out to me. Call it maturity, or maybe just the need to finally unburden myself of too many years of self-inflicted guilt and anger, but I wanted, and needed, to once more be connected to those people who really mattered.

I ponder those words of my father and what he might have meant by the sun shining in the darkest forest. I’m not sure if he was trying to tell me that he had such a troubled childhood and Mom was his sunshine. I know that, back then, I felt like he was speaking of me, as the ray of light. It was the thought of a young man absorbed only in himself. Today, I believe he had more meaning and depth in those words he once spoke. The man whom I once considered my hero, only to see him fall mightily from his throne, was once again in my thoughts and becoming more human than I ever anticipated.

Chapter 5

When you take the time to separate yourself from the past, you have an opportunity to freely look back and see the patterns of your life unfold. All of this was happening to me now in such unbridled magnitude, I wondered if I wouldn’t be crushed by the weight of it. One moment, I’m sitting in the hospital room with Grandpa Jake, trying to hold on to the last semblance of hope, and the next instant, I’m transported through my memories, to times past. I don’t know if this is normal for people going through life-changing events, such as I seem to be experiencing at this moment, or if somehow, the dots of my life are slowly being reconnected, so I can better see and understand my present. I only know I am beginning to doubt many of the recollections I once firmly held onto as the truth, especially in regards to my father. My ever-growing anger over the years had managed to erase many of the dots, which at one time had been brightly visible. Grandpa’s death had somehow made them appear again for me to see and reconnect. What else had I missed or not realized all these past years? I had spent the last six years trying to suppress all memories of this place and all the jointed feelings it held for me, both good and bad. Now, my past was rushing back to me and fighting for my outright attention. There was a story waiting to be told, and I needed to hear it before my life could be set straight. Like a puzzle that is missing a few pieces, my life wouldn’t be complete until I found my missing parts.

Just like the moment with my father, the day of the summer festival in June before my senior year, was suddenly a glowing recollection, fighting for supremacy within my mind. It was the twelfth of June, two days after Allison had moved in next door. Grandma Sarah woke up that morning, as she did every day, and headed out for her gossip-walk. There were three or four older ladies in the neighborhood who liked to walk together; we all knew it was really, talk together. They always made their way to the center of town to “Bill’s,” the local café, now run by Pete and Linda Schilling. Bill’s had been a staple of Cedar Junction for thirty years, ever since the day William Tressler had opened it. He ran it for twenty-five of those thirty years and, for the last ten, his daughter, Linda, was by his side. Five years ago, a heart attack took him, and Linda, with the help of her husband Pete, took over running the place full time.