I got home early from school one day. My grandfather hadn't heard me come home or open the door. He was in the living room. I could hear him speaking softly and gently to someone, but I didn't think anyone was home. And the whole situation already felt a little weird, because I had never heard that tone come from him ever before. It felt like he was speaking in a foreign language. I silently went to the living room doorway, and watched, as my grandfather was on the ground, cuddling our pet dog, and telling him how much he loved him. Nuzzling him with his own head as he whispered in his ear how good a dog he was. I was so dumbstruck by what I saw, that it's my earliest and strongest memory of actually having my mouth agape in shock and surprise.
I felt confused at first, I had never seen him treat anyone or anything with such affection. He had always been so stern with everyone in our family, always a little distant. Always belittling everyone. And here he was, telling our damn dog how much he loved him. The confusion fed into a combination of jealousy and anger almost naturally. That he could treat this dog so much better than his own grandson, his own family. And, after yet another beat, I felt a happiness as I watched, at this pure, unadulterated joy they were bringing to each other. And finally sadness.
Sadness because I knew when I had seen my grandfather had behaved like that. He had used that same tone on me when I was a child. When I couldn't really remember the words, but I could remember the shape of the sentences. None of it held meaning to me, and yet it meant just as much. The roundness of the sounds and the warmth of them. Quiet enough for just the two of us. I had seen him speak that way to my sisters as well. Never when he knew I was around, but only when he was alone with them, and I was too young to really understand back then what he was doing. When they too were too young to form the sentences to talk back. At some point when we gained the ability to talk back, to question him, that's usually when it stopped. And then I thought the only other person his whole life he must have been like that to was his daughter, my mother. And his wife. My grandmother. My grandmother who died when my mother was just a child, and couldn't even speak herself. He must have spoke sweet affection to them both. To my mother who couldn't speak. And my grandmother, who's final days were in a coma. And as my mother grew up, and learned how to speak, he learned how to remain silent.
Around that same time in my life is when I started sleeping a lot lighter, and I would wake up from just about anything happening in our house. That's when I first learned of my grandfather's dreams. How he would have pretty regular dreams where he'd be barking like a dog in his dream, and he would bark in real life, in his sleep. At least that's how my mother explained it after it had happened a few times, and I had asked her. The next time I heard it, I got out of bed, and peeked in on him from his doorway. After I don't know how long of waiting, he barked again, and then, almost inaudibly. He started to whine. Almost a whimper, or a cry. And through his shut eyes, I could see the tears run down his face. Turned onto his left side, the tears went down his nose, and his left cheek. I didn't know what to do, so I went back to bed.
I sometimes think that he only shows love for those that can't talk back, because he's scared of all the things that won't love him back. That can't any more because they're gone. Because someday it will all be gone. And so will he.
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