Decades of History

Grandpa will be 89 on March 26. He was born in 1918. When I think about that, it is a little unfathomable. He has so many decades of memories. He lived through wars, depressions, over 20 Presidential terms, computerization of work, fast cars, nuclear escalation, and over 60 years of Grandma's cooking. He's hiked up Mt. Everest, traveled through Africa, the Middle East, South America, and who knows where else. When he was lying feebly in a hospital bed, only loosely aware of what was going on around him, it was hard to remember how experienced and competent he is at life.

I have spent a lot of time with Grandpa over this past week. He had a lot of time alone in a room to reflect on his life and talked about he kept going back to growing up on a farm in Iowa. It struck me how much our early childhood stays with us. It wasn't the time he spent in Japan as an architech, his wedding day, the birth of his children, the sights he had seen, or the work where he spent most of his adult life that he kept coming back to. He talked about his sister and milking cows. I feel like I have forgotten large chunks of my own childhood and I am 50 years closer in time to it that he is to his own. I wonder if the memories lost or repressed will return when I'm lying in a hospital bed in my days of twilight. So much of what we carry on our shoulders every day -- the stuff that makes us bend over decrepit, wince at the thought of getting up, avoid looking at our responsibilities directly -- isn't what sticks at the end. I guess that's somewhat comforting.

I watch Grandpa experiencing this reflection on his life. I see he has certain regrets and desires to make amends, tries to be less harsh and inpatient, and appreciate people who are important to him in a more expressive and verbal way. It makes me a little sad that I have not taken every opportunity to get to know him and hear more of his stories. He has almost 90 years worth of stories and I've barely scratched the surface. Most of our conversations over the years were light and trivial. I talk to him in short sentences, straining to be heard over his increasingly poor hearing. The speaking in short sentences made my topics more simple, my comments more simple, my questions more simple.

I need to remember how full his life and understanding is and take advantage of what opportunity to hear stories and tell him some of my own remain.

I love the little details of our lives that you forget about shortly after they happen. Or they are so insignificant that they don't seem repeating to other people but they make you smile: the image of Grandpa as a young man, milking the cows and squirting milk toward the transient barn cats that were sheepishly lurking around waiting for just such an occurence, and jumped at the milk before it could even touch the ground.