Storytime.
Today has been a day.
Jax and I are both sick and as we got better, a little rebound situation started late last night. I’m pretty much just coming up for air. But I was sitting here trying to have a calm moment with tea. I started to try and think about how I navigated being sicker than this with a toddler who, according to my mom, had the energy of three toddlers. I was worried that there had been too many times that I had been sick, and maybe Jax had missed something. Perhaps he’s missing something now. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized Jax and I had spent much time together. We aren’t always doing something significant, but we are here together, comfortable in our skin. Learning to just be. Yes, over time, we have spent much time in my bed, on the couch, or on the floor. And it was in those moments we did our bonding. I taught Jax how to read books, the newspaper, and magazines. We discussed all the topics, played puzzles, Pokemon cards, chess, monopoly, learned how to color inside the lines, and played video games. Sometimes, we just listened to music in silence. Sometimes, we watch the news, a movie, or one of their shows. We learned how to be.
While I was thinking of this, my grandpa popped into my head. I remembered our little routine when my grandpa was released from the hospital many, many months after he was a victim of a home invasion where he was shot point blank with a sawed-off shotgun. My grandpa’s injuries slowed him down considerably, which gave us more quality time together. It also forced my father to be in Los Angeles full-time as he was my grandpa’s caretaker and spend some time with me. My dad would pick me up and bring me to my grandpa’s house. I would immediately remove my jacket and place it on the couch. Remove my shoes, put them in front of the sofa, and barrel into the kitchen to get a plate of snacks for me and my grandpa. I would walk the short distance to the dark hallway and into his room. Often, if it was quiet in the house, my grandfather would be asleep, so I would carefully and quietly walk to the other side of the bed, place the plate on the nightstand, and stare at my grandpa. He was usually in pajamas, a robe, and glasses perched on his nose. K-Earth 101 was playing on the radio in the room, and a newspaper was sprawled out on the bed. My grandfather was not a shy man. He had a distinctive personality, a raspy, hollow high-pitched voice that carried. He was often known to project his voice loud enough to wake the dead if he needed to get his point across. He was elegant in dress and demeanor and always neat and pristine in appearance. Not a hair out of place. And if you were fortunate to be on his good side, you were embraced by a wide, toothy grin.
“Grandpa.” I’d whisper in a not-so-whispery little kid voice. His eyes remained closed.
“Yes?” he would answer.
“Are you still alive?” I’d ask with genuine curiosity and just a twinge of cheek. And he would sigh, slowly open his eyes, and turn his head to meet my curious gaze.
“Well, I’m not dead yet.” Followed by a large toothy grin.
I got my mischief and morbid humor from him, and this cheeky banter bonded us for life. Once I established that Grandpa was, in fact, very much alive, I began to jump up toward this monstrous bed and shove all of the papers over toward him. Then, I grabbed the reins on the covers to pull myself up. My grandpa had the most enormous bed known to man in terms of width and height. I often wondered just how many stuffed animals I could get in that bed with me and Grandpa; I was sure it was all of them, and I still had room for one or two more large Garfield or Hello Kitty stuffies.
As I climbed up the Mt. Everest bed, grunting and scrambling, I would always hear myself reminding grandpa that “I got it.” as he reminded me not to hurt myself. I would end my journey to the top of the bed with a loud sigh and grunt, both amused and proud of myself for making such a dangerous journey without falling backward or hurting myself and my grandfather. My father’s voice would echo from the kitchen or living room, “Brooke?” to which my grandfather and I would answer in synch, “We’re fine!” With a silent “Now leave us alone” trailing at the end of that. My grandfather would shift as much as he could in bed, and I would gather all the newspapers and put everything back together again. Once the papers were married to one another, pressed flat and folded over twice. I helped Grandpa with his blankets and pillows and reopened the paper to reveal the front page.
I loved the smell of the newspaper. It reminded me of coffee and breakfast. And the smell of coffee and breakfast meant family. The smell of the printed pressed paper and the rustling of the documents suggested that I was sharing time with someone I loved. Whether it was my mom and stepdad, my uncle Bryan, my auntie Lonnie, and Uncle Harry, or my grandpa, I was spending time with people I loved being up under all the time. In my family, the newspaper or television at the table or in the living room didn’t mean we were ignored. In this family, it meant engagement. Sounds weird, I know, but no matter what, an adult would either ask you about what we just watched or tell you about what they just read in the paper and ask you questions about it. We were raised to be thinkers and to question. And if coffee was brewed and bacon had been fried, we would all be there a while.
Once, I would unfold the newspaper and lay the headlines before us. I would crawl back to the nightstand and grab our plate of goodies. For our snacking pleasure, a charcuterie of babybel cheese, liverwurst pate, dried salami, crackers, carrot sticks, apples, and grapes. As if he had read our minds, my dad would walk in with a cup of coffee or tea for Grandpa and a Clearly Canadian Martinelli’s Apple of Cider or Orangina for me. While Grandpa sipped his coffee, he asked me about the weather in my part of town. He asked about school and my friends. He asked about my mom, stepdad, siblings, my grandma, and everyone on my mom’s side of the family by name. And then, when he was ready, he would tap on a very long, elegant index finger on the top of the page. I started at the newspaper’s title, and we would read until either he fell asleep or my dad would come and get him up for his walkabout.
As my grandpa healed, our visits evolved, starting in his big bed with a recycled newspaper. One day, I visited and saw him sitting in a chair in the kitchen. Then, one day, I opened the door to be greeted by his grin in the living room. He was on the sofa in a smoking jacket, legs crossed, and with a newspaper waiting for me. The newspaper evolved into records spinning on the record player. Grandpa’s smoking jacket evolved into a Mr. Rogers-esque sweater. The evolution of reading the news came from my own lips. My Hedda Hopper era of running down the gossip I heard in the salon, mixed in what Ted Koppel, Sam Donaldson, and Peter Jennings told me on the nightly news and what I might have seen on Oprah when my step-grandmother wasn’t looking while I laid on the floor in the living room surrounded by the sounds of John Coltrane. My grandpa healed. He went back to working his post-retirement job at the local mortuary. Yes, a mortuary. Because after working for the United States Treasury and Census, of COURSE, the next step is to drive dead people around when you retire. Grandpa was back, baby! The suits were back, all three pieces, and tighter than ever. He hollered for my father to come from the carport to the living room to change the dial on a television he had a remote for. I was back to being his personal bank teller for the money he stashed all over the house and being paid handsomely for it. We were back to arguing over why American Gladiator was absolutely a very real and very authentic show. And occasionally, I could get him to laugh a delicious belly laugh.
In 1998, my uncle Jeffrey, my father’s brother, died, and I unfortunately and unknowingly broke the news to my grandfather. And my grandpa, well, he just broke in two. He suffered a mild heart attack not long after we hung up. Only to suffer a massive heart attack and mild stroke after my uncle’s funeral. It was time to move Grandpa to Chicago, where my aunt could look after him full-time. I remember when I was packing up his little pre-war apartment. It didn’t hit me just how profound those years of his recovery were on my soul until I made my down the short, dark hallway to the room with the Mt. Everest bed. His accident slowed him down to a near stop. He was stripped of independence, social life, and his work. But he found a way not only to enrich our relationship but also to give me the tools to be my best self, cope, and pivot.
After my surgery in 2012, I was lying in bed, and Jax entered the room with a book. He climbed into my tall bed with all his might and laid the book before me, telling me he would read me a story. Then he climbed down, rushed out of the room, and returned with snacks. Handed me the snacks and then climbed back in the bed, telling me, “I got it. I got it.” While he got comfortable, I tried to get myself comfortable, shifting my ostomy bag and putting a pillow up to keep Jax from rolling off the bed. I thought about my grandpa at that moment and what he might have said if he had seen me with my own ostomy, finding ways to pivot and letting my kid not be afraid of me. I imagined he would have come in, wearing a three-piece suit and not a hair out of place, pointed that long, skinny, crooked finger at me, smiled and winked as Jax and I just sat there, being.