I’m worried I’ll never go gray. My grandfather died with a full head of dark brown hair–completely natural. He was reading a book when his heart stopped, I wish I knew which. He died the day before Valentine’s day which, as a child, is significant.
I slept on the floor of my grandmother’s living room that night, and in the morning, I peeled the paper off crayons. I broke them into tiny pieces, and put them in heart-shaped muffin tins. I baked them and they melted into brand new, rainbow-colored, heart shaped crayons. They were valentines for my third grade classmates. I wanted them to know I cared about them enough to do this, even though this very strange thing–death–had happened so close to me.
The last time I saw him he gave me flowers–I had just performed in a figure skating show. We kept the flowers–dried, preserved in oil, and saved in a jar. Dried flowers in oil are surprisingly beautiful, and appropriately morbid. We have them still.
My grandfather was my mother’s closest friend. They fought like siblings and he taught her how to exist in a world that wasn’t always kind. In exchange, she taught him how not to be an alcoholic.
His name was Gene. Every Saturday, he’d have a story to tell at dinner–we’d call it his Story of the Week. He’d tell some far reaching, long-winded story about driving through the blizzard of the century with a former senator and an olympic athlete and a near death skid across the highway. When he was done my grandma would always say, “believe that and he’ll tell you another one.”
They met in college, in Texas. Their wedding photos are so beautiful you’d know they were in love in a second.
I’ve been to Texas exactly once. It seemed, as a child, to exist as one, unending and completely flat interstate, whereon there was no speed limit and increasingly confusing billboards.
We went, in part, to see my grandfather’s sister. She lived, and lives still, with her husband and son on the end of a dirt road off a dirt road, (not an exaggeration.) They raise longhorns on acres and acres of the most beautiful, rolling hills I’ve ever seen.
I imagine that my grandfather grew up somewhere like this–used to this insane, completely isolated beauty.
He preferred me to my sister–an uncommon trait in my family. I was anxious and challenging and sad in a way that upset most people, but my grandfather loved me most. I miss him terribly–even now.
I really would have liked to know him, and for him to know me now–still anxious and challenging and sad in a way that upsets most people–but strong and happy and trying. Childishly, I’d like for him to know me now, and still like me most.
I think of him a lot this time of year–how he never went gray, but that I’d really like to. I’m hoping that’s how we’re different.
Girl Seeking Peanut Butter 