A Memory

       It’s June, fire is crackling, and I'm sitting out back of this old house, which has undergone quite a few renovations in recent years. Some people say my grandfather would be rolling in his grave at all that has changed. I always think about him, wondering what he would think of me. I like to think that I am like him in some ways. The ways I remember him anyway. Although most of my fondest memories with him were when he was in a wheelchair, unable to form sentences. Those years living with him affected me to my core, shaping my character still to this very day. 
      I have small glimpses of being with him when I was young, before the stroke. When we would visit from Maryland I remember the house here. The gray shingles and blue shutters, the rose bushes, and rock walls...and good ole Grandpa, shirtless, in his tattered flannel jeans, doing what he did best...tending to his yard. I remember the inside of his house and how it smelled. Pine sol, black licorice and the welcoming scent of his wood stove.I remember his candy tin sitting on the living room table, it was blue, green, red and yellow, and always had a fresh supply of gummy worms. I think I have inherited his sweet tooth, and I’m okay with that. 

        The living room housed a bright green rug, and floor length vintage drapes covered the windows. There was a couch that leaned against a half wall with see through shelving taking you into the den. The shelves held trinkets, and if memory serves me correct, I remember mini glass figurines of naked natives, and glass birds. He had a rotary phone and I loved moving the dial from 0 to 9, just to hear the noise it made     thhhhdt...dt dt dt dt dt dt dt. An enjoyable methodical buzzing noise of sorts. I remember every detail about this room, but the image that remains most clear was a great big painting of a sea scape. 
       Along the shore a piece of driftwood lay next to the portrait of the back side of a man,      with magnificent white hair, standing slightly tilted, with hands loosely held behind his back, wearing a light blue velour looking shirt and ragged jeans, with a handkerchief peeking from the back pocket. 
                              It was Grandpa alright, gazing off into the tides. 
       The painting is still hanging in our house. On occasion I will still stop and stare. A moment so unique someone felt it necessary to portray. What was it about this man? What held his gaze? What was in the tides? 

          A silent observer amiss the crashing waves left only to wonder...
          And tonight he leaves me to remember things which I ought never to forget.

"Beached By Time and Tide"