When my grandparents were alive, I considered them my main family. Why, you ask? Well, because Mum was always busy with her work supporting mothers who lacked family assistance. She was some sort of social worker. And Dad… Dad was the creative soul in our family, always searching for himself in painting, theater, and other pursuits, until he gradually faded away into the vast sea of life.
Mum loved me, but it was a frantic kind of love, coming in waves. She visited Granddad, Granny, and me once a week, bringing food and presents. She’d give me a big, powerful kiss, have lunch, drink whiskey with Granddad (Granny would look down at the table, smoothing the tablecloth), share her flood of ideas and words, and disappear again for a week or more, if work got busy.
Meanwhile, I stayed back with my “parents” to continue living quietly, tending Granny’s garden, joining Granddad on his forest walks, and listening to their endless “philosophical chats” about days gone by.
Granny was stately and, as I realize now, quite beautiful. Large, with luxurious hair that she combed weekly with a half-circle comb her mother had given her. Granddad was lean, upright, and strikingly picturesque, with a network of wrinkles starting on his forehead and cascading down his neck, always wearing a shirt that Granny kept spotless and well-pressed.
Among our Granny’s men (which were Granddad and me), we were known as “polished: washed, shaved (very clean-shaven I was!), and always in clean clothes,” as the street folks would say. Later, I struggled in school to adjust to the simple, bland word “street” and stuck with the family way of calling it.
Whom did I love more? I still can’t say because they were a singular, united force to me, smelling of beef stew and cigarette smoke, milk and sweat, our yard and the woods.
In the mornings, the first thing I saw was Granddad’s sculpted face leaning over me, whispering as I opened my eyes: “Rise and shine, Jimmy. Granny’s baked some buns with garlic. And a hedgehog’s waiting for us in the woods to tell new tales.”
Granddad would kiss me lightly, brushing my cheek with his scratchy, unshaven face. I’d whimper, not yet realizing this was pure happiness: “No, Granddad, I don’t want to get up… I want buns with jam, not garlic.”
“We can arrange that in no time,” Granddad would say, requesting, “Granny Mary, hey, Granny Mary! Our prince wants buns with jam! Got it?!”
A moment later, Granny’s face would appear in the doorway, saying, “Of course! I’ve already put jam in the blue dish. Come on now!”
While washing up, they both stood by, Granny holding a towel with an embroidered goat, Granddad trying weakly to snatch it from her hands. Then we’d eat. Just Granddad and me, because Granny didn’t sit to eat but bustled around, ensuring the meal had significance when the men of the house dined.
Finishing the meal, we’d stand, giving modest praise: “Well fed, Mum… Aye, Granny!” Then off we’d go to the yard for a smoke break.
Granddad smoked, of course, while I sat next to him, imitating his posture, arms on my knees just like him.
“So, what do you think? Ready for today?” he’d ask me.
I’d answer steadily, but not right away, “Yep…”
We’d rise from the stoop, spit (we both did because after Granddad spat, he’d nudge the cigarette butt towards me), and ask Granny, the unseen presence, “Need anything before we head to the woods, Mum?”
“Aye, Gran!”
From inside, “You go on, I’ll think about what tasks to set for you today!”
We’d grab the woven baskets (a big one for Granddad, a tiny, toy-like one he’d made for me) and head into the woods. He explained why woodpeckers have red heads, why pine needles are longer than a spruce’s, why Mum visits so seldom, why hedgehogs puff when picked up, why Dad disappeared, why butter mushrooms have sticky caps, why Granny was so beautiful, and Granddad… “less so” (in his own words).
By noon, when the woods grew hot, we’d return home, always with something in hand: mushrooms, berries, fragrant herbs for tea.
Granny fed us again and then set me to rest in the cool hallway on a mattress to let “dinner bits settle.” Granddad would cover me with his old, fragrant coat, sitting there until… I would drift into dreams of a giant bird with blue eyes asking, “Jimmy, were you good today? Did you make Gran and Granddad happy?”
I’d gaze truthfully at the bird… then wake up…
And there was Gran, with milk poured in the mug with poppies and a big chunk of bread—white, baked that morning right alongside the buns.
Later, Granddad and I would work in the yard or house, while Granny went to the garden to “idle about” and “see if all was well,” pulling weeds, watering plants, and doing whatever was needed.
We worked because we knew, “men’s work inside the house must be done by men, and women’s by the Granny.”
Now, I’m older than my grandparents were during those times. I’ve had a heart attack, lying here in the hospital after surgery. As I lie here, I think: I need to survive, to be the person who treasures these memories.
