Mill Steet

Half-way between my house and 27 Autumn Drive was the minor league baseball field. It's where, as an official baseball player in town, I played all my little league games. One side of the field, past the right field fence, were the old train tracks, long out of service. Past the deepest parts of the outfield, beyond center and left field were woods. Across the gravel parking lot bordering the third base fence, the Quinnapiac River trickled and flowed under a cover of trees, charting its way through Southington like a ribbon in the wind.

The baseball diamond itself sat across the street from the old Peck, Stow & Wilcox Company, who donated the land to the town to make the baseball field. Deteriorating factory buildings could been seen across unused fields with overgrown grass. The company's trade name, Pexto, built a reputation in Southington as a prominent tinware manufacturer by the early eighteen hundreds, and worked in the area for over a century before changing hands multiple times in the last half of the nineteen hundreds, when most of the manufacturing jobs began moving overseas.

At my games at Pexto Field, Pop Pop would often come down and watch me play. In early Spring, he always wore his dark pants, shiny black jacket, and beige panama-style hat--which he wore everywhere. As I played at my position in the field, or between swings when I was up to bat, I'd look over to the fence behind my team's dugout and see Pop Pop wathcing me and Grandma smiling and waving. Most of the time, though, I couldn't wave back, baseball players don't do things like that. They don't wave to their family five time a game, they don't stop and smile for pictures, and they don't cry.

Naps

Napping always seemed to be a part of 27 Autumn Drive. Grandma napped more than Pop Pop, slouching into the rocking chair after her soap opera or cooking show. Her eyes would be the first thing to give her away, drooping slowly until just before closing--and snapping back up reluctantly. Only seconds would go by before the process started over.

Before long her body would slouch, form a more relaxed position with then padding of the chair. Her head would fall to one side and lean into the front of her shoulder, pressing together the aging lines that crawled around her neck and forehead. The repeated dozing would soon win the battle. It never took long.

Pop Pop usually only fell asleep on the couch after eating. It would happen in the same way: the drowsy look, slouching, lethargically slow blinks preceding a leaned back head, propped up arms on a pillow and armrest.

On rainy days sometimes even I slept. Laying out below the TV, head propped up on a pillow, even my eyes drooped as I watched the rain dripping off the awning, the misty neighborhood behind.

Gone

Now that my grandparents are gone, existing only in what memories I happen to have of them, Autumn Drive just another average house in a middle class neighborhood on the west side of some forgettable Connecticut suburb, I'm forced to think back. Was there something special about it? All the summer days, all the time I spent there? What was it all worth it, my time with Primo and Josephine Pauletti?

Even when I was young, I thought about the day I would no longer have grandparents. Knowing that someday, far in the clouded future, that it was inevitable. I looked upon it with only a light stress, knowing it would be a salient mark to the end of a chapter of my life. Now that the page has turned, the chapter over, I don't feel any different than I did before they were gone. I wasn't swept up, transformed by some monumental internal change. If anything occurred within me, it happened with the subtlety of a ball of snow rolling down a mountain with the potential to start an avalanche.

And still I feel nothing significant. The only difference is realizing Pop Pop and Grandma are not there, not at Autumn drive, not anywhere. I'm reminded every time I watch the Discovery Channel or see games of bingo and I, for a split second, want to make a call or pay a visit. But there would be nowhere for that call to go, no one in the house to visit.

Poverty

The women there, he told me, like the ones in National Geographic magazines from the poorest parts of Indonesia, skulking around foraging for food with one hand, holding a baby in the other, would do anything for help. They were desperate.

"They'd run up along the train," Pop Pop explained. "And shoot their breast milk at the glass for the GIs. The guys got a charge out of it."

Pop Pop's head dropped a little, as if falling into some distant memory, "I always felt bad when they did that."

Is that something to be deeply sad about? It is for me, every time I think of the desperateness, the utter despair those moms felt. The inconsolable situation those people were in, caught in the middle of some other people's war. The war may have been in their backyard, but it wasn't theirs. It came from a far-away, unknown place, and they watched it happen helplessly, unable to influence it in any way, like ants watching a giant foot destroy their excavated dirt mounds sealing off their homes below.

"It must have been like another world over there," I said.

Pop Pop agreed.

The Box

One evening as I visited, Pop Pop brought out 'the box.' The infamous box of his past, with all kinds of 'odds and ends,' as he called it, from years ago.

The wooden chest, no bigger than a shoe box, sat on the island reflecting the round kitchen light off its amber-colored top. Pop Pop flipped up it latch and opened it slowly. A thin blue wire attached the hinged top to the side, so the top would stay propped open without swinging too far backwards.

I sat accoss from him and watched as he sifted through his old things. His eyes lit up when they met something he'd long forgotten about: old hunting permits and older report cards, the way they would when he saw an old, forgotten friend.

"This here," he said, lifting out a small, brown roll of plastic material with a button in its center. "This was the sewing kit the Army gave us."

He handed it to me. It was heavier than I thought. I unclipped the button and unrolled it. On the inside of the roll was a felt cloth riddled with all kinds of needles and pins. The base of the little roll held a thimble and two rolls of thread, one black, the other white. This is what he carried during WWII, I asked myself? Only the essentials, Pop Pop once told me. He continued to sift through the contents of the box.

The Kellers, Continued...

One time, Mr. Keller came inside my grandparent's house to talk about something with Pop Pop. Staring at the unique sight for 27 Autumn Drive, the new visitor, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The silver-haired old guy I always observed from afar looked the same--only closer, complete with round head, big thick glasses, a long sleeve plaid tee shirt with a puffy orange vest and jeans.

From my spot on the end of the couch, I peered into the kitchen. Pop Pop sat at the island talking to Mr. Keller standing somewhere near the stove. From where I was eavesdropping, I couldn't help overhearing the neighbor's new plans. He wanted to build a garage off the side of his house, out toward my grandparents' side.

Pop Pop wasn't bothered by it in the least. What did it bother him what his neighbor did in his own yard? Apparently Mr. Keller just wanted to run it by him and gauge his opinion.

The next time I heard about the building of the garage, my mom brought it up in the car, on the way back home a few days later.

"Now Nancie and I have to go to some hearing because Grandma doesn't want it built," she said.

"How come she doesn't want him to built it?"

There were a bunch of reasons: loss of privacy on that side of the house (the rose bush side), it would cast more shade in that area, obstruction of the view down the street from the master bedroom window Grandma never looked out of--but now planned on doing every day. Grandma pointed out a couple more things. The shed near the Kellers house had to be taken down to make room for the addition, the illegally built shed that never would have been okayed by town hall. Also, the fact that the Kellers had a garage once, on the right side of their house, like 27 Autumn Drive, that they converted to living space.

"So now they're going to have two driveways?" Grandma complained.

Within months the neighbors did, in fact, have two driveways, their old one, the tar that went right up to the right side of their house, and the new one, the one for their new garage. I thought their house looked good afterwards, but Grandma remained passively bitter, especially when Mrs. Keller stopped chatting with her about the roses or the marigold out front.

After the addition went up, and Mr. Keller stopped acknowledging Pop Pop when he worked in the yard or inspected the garden, I kind of felt bad for Pop Pop. He enjoyed talking with Mr. Keller. That's what guys do, talk about man things. Aside from Uncle Chet, what other guy did he have to talk to in the area? And the garage went up, Mr. Keller got what he wanted. After that minimal amount of fighting, brought on only by my Grandma, Mr. Keller won, what else was there to prove? Did he think Pop Pop was lying when he said he'd have no problem if he went ahead and built it?

I felt bad because I watched Pop Pop in the yard, stuck in an awkward situation, look over at Mr. Keller on multiple occasions and want to talk, like the old days, say some grown-up comment that would spark a conversation about football or fertilizer. Now he was lucky if he got a curt 'hello' in return. Really lucky if Mr. Keller returned a wave.

The Kellers

My grandparent's neighbors further down Autumn Drive, the Kellers, seemed like nice people. They were younger than my grandparents by many years, but their children had long since moved away, making them pretty old by my account. They always kept their yard looking trimmed and neat. Mulched flower beds, painted wooden wells, in the backyard near the woods, in line with their screened in porch, an ocean-themed shed, complete with giant, fake anchors and little brown nets hanging like spider webs on the side of the little gray building.

Mr. Keller and Pop Pop would talk often at the border of the property, at the backside of the garden, under the pine tree, along the walkway to the back yard. They always seemed to talk about the same old things: how the garden was doing that year, how bad the bugs were, how often the squirrels stole from the pear tree or the rabbits ate from the green beans, and how hot the days were, especially with the humidity.

Pop Pop told me once about a time before I was born. Mr. Keller came over and asked for advice on what to do with the water problem in his back yard. Every time it rained, his backyard became a mud hole. The rain, along with the septic tank, wasn't working together to make a satisfactory backyard.

"I told him to go ahead and get a couple loads of dirt, " Pop Pop described. "Raise up the yard a bit."

It made sense and apparently worked. Mr. Keller never had a problem since. The story explained why, at the back of their yard, the ground dropped a couple feet in elevation as it leveled out with the woods. Pop Pop recalled the story fondly. It seemed to me he was glad he though of a way to fix their problem, glad he could help.

White Rocks

Along the path between my grandparent's house and Aunt Steffie's and Uncle Chet's house were white-painted stones. I knew they weren't naturally this color, because if I looked closely, I could see the thin streaks, like straight fingerprint lines, from where the paintbrush pushed the paint along the face of the rock.

When I asked my Aunt Steffie why they were painted, she told me it was so that my Uncle Chet could see them, so he didn't trip when he made his way down the hill.

"His eyesight ain't that good anymore," she said.

I always seemed to look at these rocks when I walked or ran by. They sat at the far corner of the neighbor's yard, at the base of an old, rustic style fence: posts and cross-members made out of the trunks of young pine trees, debarked but uncut. The fence itself, I thought, save for the cross pieces, looked almost natural enough to blend in.

Sometimes I walked down the hill pretending I was my Uncle Chet, acting out a scenario in which the whiteness of the round rocks stood out enough to save me. Down the hill I stepped carefully, hunched over and cautious. I squinted my eyes to replicate bad vision. I plodded along, head and shoulders swinging back and forth as I exaggerated each haggard step until the bottom of the hill.

"Oh...oh," I pronounced to myself upon spotting the rocks, like parts of the moon, darker in spots, protruding from the dirt. "Better walk around them."

Walking to the side, my decrepit legs stirred clear of the danger. The white rocks worked!

Tree Swing

A peach tree grew in the backyard between the garden and the house. I climbed its rough, scabrous trunk and made my way as high as I could go, sticking my foot in the crotch of the last two branches that could support my weight. Muddy, gelatin-like fungus grew out from it's forking joints and trimmed branch stubs.

Pop Pop told me of a time when the tree was no bigger than a tulip. He put a little fence up around the area to prevent the lawn mower from cutting it with the rest of the grass until it was big enough

One branch extended out toward the concrete sidewalk near the faucet. For as long as I remember, some sort of twine was tied up in two stops along this branch, looping down a foot above the ground. Sometimes I sat in this loop and pushed off the thick ground swinging back and forth. Other times I stood up, with one foot in the loop and my hands gripped tightly on the skinny rope, swinging almost parallel with the ground.

At the back corner of the house, near the rose bushes, sat a tall pine tree, almost as tall as the two story part of the house on that side. The lower branches were trimmed and the bare trunk exposed. Pop Pop built a swing for me there. Two white ropes hung from a sturdy branch holding a painted yellow piece of wood that was better to swing on than the peach tree's rope.

Quarters

One day, as I sifted through the change in the cup holder of my mom's Chevy Lumina, I came across a weird looking quarter. Washington's side profile still resembled all the other quarters I had ever seen, only it was a bit different. Maybe a newer model? It did say 1999. I turned it over and saw, not the eagle, but the outline of the state of Delaware. It was a Delaware state quarter. Unbelievable.

"Grandma!" I cried when we arrived, lifting the quarter under up to her face with my hand. "Look."

She tilted her head back, peering down the lower part of her bifocals. We went to the dinning room table to inspect it under the brighter lights.

"Wow," she said, flipping it from one side to the other. "That's neat."

By the end of the year, we had a bunch: Pennsyvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut. Grandma and Aunt Steffie bought me a booklet to house each state quarter, all the way until the year 2008! The outside of it was green, and opened up to a map of the United States, with little one inch circle cut-outs that the quarters fit perfectly into.

More on Spiders

I hate spiders. I don't mind the wispy ghost spiders or tiny weightless ones. Daddy longlegs, or harvestmens, don't bother me either, but they're not spiders, or 'the most venomous spider in the world, only their fangs aren't big enough to bite through a human's skin,' as the urban legend tells it. Fact is daddy longlegs don't even have venom glands or poisonous fangs of any kind. And while they are Arachnids, they're are not considered a spider.

The spiders that bother me are the ones that sprint out of some dark corner or crevasse running like track runners in a one-hundred meter dash, across the carpet or cement floor for no apparent or guessable reason. They're the juicy ones. The ones that freeze when they see movement, a towering mass looming closer to them or my foot slamming the ground next to them. I hoped to stop them long enough for Grandma or Pop Pop to come over and squish them. As much as I hated them, I didn't enjoy watching their exoskeleton pop under the pressure of a rubber sole, I hated hearing the crunch more. But I had no other choice. I was too afraid to attempt to bring it outside with flimsy paper and a plastic cup. What if it crawled is way out onto my hand, crawled up my arm, in my shirt?

Those spiders, the ones that freeze mid-stride as soon as they're detected, in any position, seemed more intelligent that the other skinny-legged, small bodied spiders. They thought thinks over, stared back up at me as I stayed fixed on their plump, filled out bodies. They were too big.

Another myth, that at the time kept me up at night, goes like this: At night, spiders crawl on your bed and sometimes find their way into your dark, cave-like mouth, stupidly make their way inside where they soon die and get swallowed and digested. This happens statistically, based on how many spiders typically inhabit the dark corners of rooms, about eight times a year. Everyone eats about eight spiders a year.

Time

Twenty-three years old. I am now twenty-three years old. Where did the time go? I just graduated. How did it slip past my line of vision? My eyes were open the whole time. Thinking back, when did my twentieth year happen? My twentieth year? I don't even remember it, wasn't I here the whole time? Who did I meet then? I'd have to sit down and really think about it. How can something as elusive as time be rushing by me at breakneck speed? Twenty-three?

I heard it all the time. "Never get old, Jonny," Grandma and Pop Pop would tell me. They were right. I don't feel the effects of age yet, not even slightly, but I know time's knock will come to my door as fast as my high school graduation day came and went--I day I often thought about in my school-age life--but did I ever really believe it would come? By the time it did, the day was over, leaving me to ponder, five years later, the effects and characteristics of time from that point til now.

Every direction is a battlefield. I walk through and it hurts, somewhere deep down in my cells. They are dying, regrowing, aging. I have long since given up on a solution. As I take each step, I receive blow after blow, death after death. The casualties to my body don't stop. It's a battle I understand, but don't really know. Like minions to a master, Time has seconds and minutes and hours. When those are not enough, the days and years and decades will never fail in reminding me of their unending clench. Its hands never stop harassing me. Its fingers never stop ticking at me. Time scratches me with lines that crawl their way around my eyes and forehead. It stains the colors of my hair. It pulls at my skin and weakens the makeup of my bones. There is no place I can go without being found, no place I can hide without being seen.

Though it's my enemy, it caresses me into sleep every night. Like a friend, it wakes me up with the hope of a new day, a fresh slate that is soon stained by life, slowly seeping through the white linen of my conscious memories to remind me its a week day, or my car died, Grandma and Pop Pop are dead.

Spiders

In the dark ceiling corners and on the dusty floor trim behind the couch and television stand roamed tiny spiders, searching for minuscule areas they could name their hunting ground. More inched and clambered around on lanky thread-like legs in the unused parts of the laundry room and lower basement.

Most of the spiders were small, almost invisible, ghosts with long shuffling legs moving through the forgotten spaces of the house. The majority of these spiders, living in nooks never thought about, lived and died without ever being spied by my grandparents or myself, living in a world entirely human. Did they know their bodies were never designed for the right angles and flat planes that humans enjoyed? Of course not. Did their robust two-part bodies and powerful legs yearn for unevenness, the rotting leaves of a forest floor, the skinny stalks of saplings or grass, the bawdy feel of tree bark and branches? Generations lived and died in an environment entirely new to what their ancestors knew millions of years prior. Did spiders know anything?

Some of those spiders, I remember, were tiny, the kind I could only find by laying on the ground, dropping my chin on the floor, and watching patiently for any kind of subtle tiny movement against the carpet or linoleum. These little arachnids were no bigger than grains of sugar, their wispy legs hidden only by their microscopic size. Did they run from their bigger cousins, I wondered? Did they behave in the same way? Did they craft microscopic webs invisible from the giant eyes of elephantine humans?

Calls

Months later, my house got a call from the Southington police. They told my parents that Nancy had to be picked up outside a local bar, or she would be spending the night in jail. She had apparently walked in the bar 'dressed like a whore,' wearing a tight-fitting tube top with a short skirt and suspenders. He was acting out, flirting, and looking for attention. The newly renovated bar, Massimo's, didn't find her actions and advances welcome. Apparently the new owners were trying to change the image of the old place--Nancie, apparently, didn't get that. She was later shown her way out the front door where police held her until my father and I picked her up.

The phone calls started to become more and more common. The following spring, Nancy was caught for speeding by a state cop on Interstate 84 in Plantsville and charged with a DUI after failing a breathalyzer test. She was taken to Troop F State Police Jail in Hartford. A phone call from the police station informed my parents of the situation, and that she needed someone to come pick her up. They went, and took custody of her, preventing her from spending the night in jail. By the time they were leaving, my mom told me, she was still drunk and making advances at one of the young state police officers saying, "Wow, you're hot, you're so hot."

Nancie's husband, my Uncle Ken, called my mother one day and informed her of what was going on, that her parents were feeding Nancie money hand over fist, and had been for a long time, that the five grand was nothing. My mom wasn't surprised with this news, what surprised her was how much she had underestimated what was going on. 

Squeaky Wheel

At the last possible moment my mom made the choice to go see a lawyer, in hopes it would save what was left of the house. If not, the state would take half of everything. Thousands of dollars later and some lawyer magic work, the house avoided being claimed by the state. One problem among the paperwork, though, was all the money gifted to Nancie, the tens of thousands of dollars that went toward her credit cards, lawyer fees, and in-hand cash fund. We now had all the checks, all the proof of where the money had gone. 

The next day I watched as my mom punched in the phone number for 27 Autumn Drive. I could almost hear the phone ringing throughout the old house, and my grandmother slowly making her way to the kitchen to pick it up. My mom quickly asked her about a check she had signed for Nancie. It was 1,753.00 dollars towards a Citi Card credit card bill from July of 2008.

"I don't know," I heard her voice echo softly from the phone receiver.

My Mom explained she had a copy of the check from the bank in front of her. My grandmother claimed that it wasn't her that singed it.

I watched as my mom's face grew disgusted again. "It's your signature at the bottom of the check, you signed it."

My grandmother said it wasn't for Nancie's credit cards. My mom read the 'for' part of the check. She looked down and read it articulately through the phone, "Citi Card, 5424 180…"

"I don't remember," my grandmother's voice said. "Let's talk about something else."

My mom's face went from disgusted to dumb-struck. I knew now what we were dealing with. 

In addition to this, on closer review of the old bank statements, more checks were written out for Nancie's credit card bills that month. Those consisted of $2,225.77, making a total of 3,978.77 in one month: just one sample of one month. In the past three years, thirty thousand dollars were given, in the last several years and prior, hundreds of thousands. The squeaky wheel was getting the oil; except in this case, it was the oil, the money that funded her drug and alcohol problem, that made her squeak. 

My grandparents and Aunt Steffie knew what they were doing, conscious zombies agreeing amongst each other, depositing their money, and signing the checks. Once that brainless cycle ended, they forgot what they did, put it out of their head until the next month, credit card bill, or sob story. 

"No wonder they got that reverse mortgage," My mom explained after we had gone over the paperwork. "They had to if they wanted to pay her bills."

It was the first time I heard they had taken a reverse mortgage on the house.

(6.) Hushed Phone Calls

That summer, my mom began getting some strange vibes from my grandmother.

"Every time I get there," she said. "There's Grandma on the phone, whispering and looking over at me. As soon as I go inside she hangs up."

During this time, my mom had been going to Autumn Drive every other day to help them out with their pills and bring them their groceries. At home, she would tell me and my father that something was going on, that they weren't telling her something. Every time she would ask, though, my grandparents would deny anything out of the ordinary. One day she confronted my grandfather.

"Are you giving Nancie money again?" she asked, sitting on the loveseat in the living room. "Grandma's acting weird, if you know something, you better tell me."

She told us she explained to him that she does everything for them, that if something was going on, she should know.

From his spot at the end of the couch, my grandfather admitted that they had let her borrow money.

"How much?" my mom replied. I could picture her stern, disappointed face looking back at my grandfather, waiting for some absurd number.

Five-thousand, he said, it was just to help Nancie out through her divorce. And that she was going to pay her back. She borrowed two thousand from them and three from Aunt Steffie.

My mom continued, "Are you kidding me?"

My mom turned to us at our dinner table and retold the stories we had heard countless times. How my grandparents had paid for Nancie's college years ago, her wedding, her car. All the while never considering the fact that maybe she needed help. She had three kids, Nancie had none. Nancie had run away at age fifteen, made all the wrong choices. My mom was the one who listened to her father's advice, to work hard and always try to do the right thing. Nothing made sense.

While some things didn't make sense, others were falling into place. The divorce and money were only the tip of

the iceberg. A picture began to emerge of some underlying behavior: hushed phone calls, questionable comments, lectures about never getting caught up in drugs or alcohol. Hints of repeated actions that were slowly making their way to the surface, revealing themselves in subtle, unsettling ways. If my mom didn't push to get an answer, no one would have told her. How many times had that happened in the past? I can only imagine, but with the pervasive feeling of reality in my chest, I guessed how unfortunate and disappointing the answer was. How many things besides money were covered up? The underlying reasons for trusting Nancie, the real justifications only they knew.

Getting Old, Continued 2...

After Pop Pop came home, my mom brought him for new cloths. Twenty-five pounds lighter meant he 'swam in his old threads,' as my mom said. She went to JCPenny and they bought new pants, shirts, and belts. 

"I had to help him in the dressing room," she said, eyes watering. "We grew close then. We spent so much more time together.

One morning in June of 2008, nine months after he got home, Pop Pop woke up blind. Blood seeped below the macular in his right eye, causing irreversible damage to his retinal cells: macular degeneration, his doctor called it. Pop Pop's other eye had already suffered the same fate, and from that point on, he couldn't see a thing. 

Pop Pop was scared, his father had suffered through blindness when he grew old.

"Goin blind's the worst," he'd say as we sat on the back swing and talked about his father. "Never get old Jonny."

We had hope at first, that something positive would come out of it, that somehow the blood in his eye would clear up, at least to the point where he could distinguish when it's dark or light, or make out basic shapes. If he was lucky, I imagined it would be like opening one eye underwater: one dimension of dulled colors, smudged outlines, and stretched fissures of darkness at night. We prayed but nothing changed. 

It was apparent pretty quick that Grandma wouldn't be able to take care of Pop Pop on her own. He stayed at our house for a few days, but only another three weeks passed before he was checked in as a patient at The Summit in Plantsville, the nursing home facility not two miles from Autumn Drive. 

 Pop Pop did live a 'better quality of life' for those nine months. His heart was fixed, he had suffered through a hell I could never imagine, learned to breath, swallow, and talk again. And after being back home for the winter, gearing up for the tomato plants and summer that he was so eager to get back to, his eye, of all things, was his downfall. Neve again would he wake up to see his red-numbered radio, watch baseball games, spy on squirrels and birds from the swing or kitchen window, sit at his workbench and meticulously work on some new project. Never again would he look into the eyes of his wife, or see his grandchildren grow any further than the last images he remembered of them. 

Getting Old, Continued...

Pop Pop still struggled in the ICU of Saint Rafael's. For two months he fought off hallucinations, pain, and confusion. From there he was transferred to the Hospital of Special Care in New Britain, where he was able to breathe without the vent. His breathing, though improved, could not be sustained by his body. Doctors cut a trake in his neck, and another machine, a segue between the vent and breathing on your own, allowed him to eat normally and talk.

Talking and eating didn't come back with ease. Like riding a bike, you never forget, but sometimes have to remember the most important parts after not riding for a while: balance, concentration, and maneuverability. The rush of familiarity after the wind rushed through your hair again, your legs flossing with hot blood, fueling them for action.

After another two months of learning, rehabilitating, and struggling, Pop Pop regained his energy enough to go back home. The nurses where surprised at how well he recovered, especially someone of his age. Shortly after arriving  home, he was back to his old self again--only better, with more energy and motivation. Back to crossword puzzles, reading the daily newspaper, watching his shows and setting up his breakfasts the night before. He waited for his National Geographic and Star Magazines, which he called his 'rag magazine' for some reason, though I never knew why. 

"He fell in his old routine," my mom said. "He was happy."

When Pop Pop settled, he reflected on his four months in the hospital, May to September. He was depressed that he missed the summer. When he was alone in the hospital, time moved only in his head capriciously, fast on good days, slow on bad days. Escpecially in the ICU, where no windows or natural light hinted at time of day. Outside, the world kept revolving around the sun, seasons changed and the barren trees blossomed and from far away looked like thick broccoli. While Pop Pop sat in his hospital bed, gardens grew and moles tunneled under lawns, bees lived and died, and birds crafted nests and raised their hatchlings. He was sad that he missed his tomatoes, planting and fertilizing the roses, sitting on the swing watching the backyard world go by. Now nights were cold, and the first autumn frost was close, due to stunt every living thing into the browns, reds, and yellows of the harvest season.

Getting Old (Including yesterday's 'Health')

In early spring of 2007, Grandma didn't feel right. She felt weak, and after a few days of increasing tiredness, she knew something was wrong. My mom brought her to the emergency room at Bradley Hospital, the hospital she worked at, to get things checked out. By the time they arrived, Grandma was in pretty bad shape and getting worse. She could hardly stand, talk, or stay awake. Within hours she was on a vent to help her breath.

Grandma was placed in the Intensive Care Unit and slowly gained her strength over the coming days. She claimed, though, she wasn't feeling normal.

"I don't know Cathy," she worried to my mom. "Its got to be my hernia or something."

Grandma didn't eat much in those coming days either, but the doctors and nurses were sure everything was going well after they got her x-rayed and checked out her hernia. Grandma's doctor wanted her to stay in the ICU one more day, having the inclination, he said, that she really should stay a bit longer. His inclination proved accurate when Grandma began throwing up--her entire system backed up--proving that something was wrong. 

That day Grandma went into hernia surgery to remove a blockage in her intestines. The doctors warned that Grandma was weak, and may not be able to handle such a surgery at her age. The doctor went in quick, he said, did what he had to do, removed the blockage, and closed her up as soon as possible. The operation went fast and was a success. 

Grandma wasn't out of the water yet, a few days later I wondered if her streak of successful surgeries would run out when I found out she needed a pacemaker, or rather, her heart did. Could someone ever get used to going into surgery? Grandma may not have had all the luck in the world when it came to winning at the casino, but she sure seemed to have her fair share of luck at the hospital---and good doctors. Days after her pacemaker was put in, she was ready to go to The Summit in Plantsville, a nursing home facility in town, not tow miles from Autumn Drive, to recoup for a couple of weeks. 

The day Grandma went to The Summit in Plantsville, Pop Pop called my Aunt Steffie complaining of chest pain. She brought him to Bradley. There they x-rayed his chest and decided immediately that he needed surgery. That night he was transferred to Saint Raphael's--the next day, after less than twenty-four hours, he went into triple bypass heart surgery. His heart, the doctors said, was weak, and on the verge of giving out. Two of his four arteries were clogged, another one was partially blocked. He was lucky something didn't happen already, they said. The surgery was an absolute emergency. 

When I heard the news I shuttered. Grandma had gone through big operations like this before, including a triple bypass, but Pop Pop had been healthy for the most part--or at least lucky enough to avoid major surgeries. That was good for him, because like me, he hated doctor's offices and anything to do with cutting your body open. I thought about where he was at that moment, how nervous he might be, who or what he might be thinking about. I wondered if the nervousness he must have been feeling that night could have caused a heart attack or some other issue--I know my heart would be pounding from the moment I heard I needed to go under the knife, as loud as Grandma tenderizing meat with her wooden hammer.

Later, my mom told me, that surgery wasn't the only option. Medication and therapy could have averted the major heart operation, but there was always the risk of dropping dead anywhere.

"He didn't like the idea that he could drop at any time," my mom explained. "I think that's why he wanted the surgery, as nerve-racking as it was."

It made sense that the only thing worse than going through the surgery was not doing it and always thinking that any moment could be his last. Not knowing where he might be in the next week, few days, or couple of hours. That death might be just around the next corner, in the room down the hall, waiting just outside the front door. The doctors even said, that if Pop Pop went through with the operation, he would have a better quality of life, be able to do more, breathe easier, not have to worry about getting suddenly tired or losing his breath.

The surgery itself was a success, the complications afterward were a bigger problem. Pop Pop couldn't breath on his own. Tubes ran their way down his throat, causing apparent irritation and dried, white-cracked saliva around his mouth where they entered. A smaller gray tube entered his nose from another hanging bag beside the bed, supplying nutrients that kept him fed with only the essential vitamins, minerals, and supplements to keep his body going. 

Grandma, after two weeks at The Summit, came to live with us for another two weeks, a segue between the immediate care at the nursing home, and going back home to live by herself. The visiting nurse came and Grandma regained her strength. 

Health

In the spring of 2007, the day Grandma went to The Summit in Plantsville, Pop Pop called my Aunt Steffie complaining of chest pain. She brought him to Bradley Where they x-rayed his chest and decided immediately that he needed surgery. That night he was transferred to Saint Raphael's--the next day, after less than twenty-four hours, he went into triple bypass heart surgery. His heart, the doctors said, was weak, and on the verge of giving out. Two of his four arteries were clogged, another one was partially blocked. He was lucky something didn't happen already, they said. The surgery was an absolute emergency. 

When I heard the news I shuttered. Grandma had gone through big operations like this before, including a triple bypass, but Pop Pop had been healthy for the most part--or at least lucky enough to avoid major surgeries. That was good for him, because like me, he hated doctor's offices and especially anything to do with cutting your body open. I thought about where he was at that moment, how nervous he might be, who or what he might be thinking about. I wondered if the nervousness he must have been feeling that night could have caused a heart attack or some other issue--I know my heart would be pounding from the moment I heard I needed to go under the knife, as loud as Grandma tenderizing meat with her wooden hammer.

 

The surgery itself was a success, the complications afterward were a bigger problem.

Time 2

When we are young, I think we have a tendency to believe that the world was created for us, that the time that existed before we were born never really happened, that people and places like Abraham Lincoln and ancient Rome were all but fairy tales, no different than Jack and the Beanstalk and Snow White.

The truth goes deeper. We grow and find out that Mom really was ten years old once, that Pop Pop really did fight a war 'back in the day', it really was Nancie in those faded pictures. We discover, as we travel deeper and deeper into the past, opening like a wound behind a slicing knife, that the world is a much different place than the sheltered nursery we grew up in. There was a time before electricity, machines, and books. People used to fight with swords, sacrifice each other, kneel before tyrant kings. Further back in time civilizations built pyramids and worshipped the sun--they moved in groups across Asia and the plains of Africa--people, if they can be called that, stood upright and began to walk on two legs instead of four.

We realize, finally, that the past opens up, goes deeper than we could possibly imagine, to a point where we have no hope of understanding the true expanse of it. It goes so far, so unimaginably backward, that anything can be possible under the horizon of the unknown.

Time

When I finally begin to get a glimpse of understanding the age of the universe, or how long the earth has been gyrating through our solar system, or how long it takes animals and plants to evolve, a wave of fear plunges, for a split second, down my chest and into my stomach--and is gone.

I look around outside and watch the leaves flutter on the tips of swaying branches, the brittle flowers opening up to the puffing and dissolving clouds above, bugs bobbing left and right, up and down in the moist, rain-washed forest, the white-washed moon charting it's way across the sky--stopping every time you peek upwards to spy on its movement. Why are these things so beautiful?

Maybe because they are new to me. Every time I witness something beautiful, tiny bird eggs at the bottom of a saliva-cemented twig wreath, or a spider successfully trapping a beetle in its carefully crafted web, it's like witnessing a miracle, seeing some rare sight only the patient and 'in-tune' can appreciate. But to the rocks and the earth, and the spaces in-between the life, if they had a say, would find ultimate boredom in the colorful autumn-blown leaves, snowy nights, and crimson horizons at dusk. How many times have those very things happened before? In how many different ways did they occur? I was sick of mowing the lawn after one summer.

Millions of times and millions of ways. That's the answer and the only thing I can do with it is try and understand it. I don't know how, or where to start, but that's the task.

Sister?

My relationship with my brothers consists of swearing, playing sports, and hitting each other when necessary. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I had a sister, to have a relationship with a girl that was close, platonic, and real, a relationship motivated not by hair color, hip size, or facial features, but by a bond that can only be formed by growing up together.

I wondered about my mom and Nancie's relationship, how tumultuous and aggravating and even loving it might have been.Like apes in a family group, we are not so different--that's what we are, what our family is--we live and familiarize and develop with our kin, learn, hate, and laugh with our friends. We are social animals.

I felt it with my brothers, but would a sister be any different? To feel a desire to defend and protect when bullies at school go too far, like apes do when they throw rocks and shake trees to ward off rival groups or predators.

In some respect I wish I had a sister, but the truth is, I probably wouldn't be the person I am today without my brothers. The chances are pretty great that if I did have a sister, and that was all I ever knew, I'd be pondering what it would be like to have a brother. And I have two brothers, twins, a pretty rare outcome back when I was an only child begging for a little brother to grow up and play with.

Kick Ball

We stood in our grandparent's backyard, my brothers and I. It was a bit chilly for September, but our new school cloths kept the crisp October breeze at bay. I was sixteen, my brothers nine.

"Roll the ball!" Nick yelled from the patio near the back door, his high pitched voice echoing off the house behind him.

I stared at Jay on first base, standing on the rock at the back of where the garden used to be. He waited patiently to run. I turned and rolled the small purple ball up the slight incline toward Nick. His little legs ran forward. With one quick motion he flung his right leg at the plastic kickball, sending it airborne with a soft plunk. I turned and ran for the ball. My brother's legs took off simultaneously. Jay touched the exposed root in front of the big white pine tree (second base), as Nick raced around first.

When I grabbed the ball behind the pear tree, I made sure Nick got no further than second base. Frenzied giggling, though, made me turn. Jay ran right by the pole for the swing set (third base), and was bolting his way home! I took off for the patio, laughing myself at this point, watching Jay's eyes grow wide with pangs of laughter.

"No!" he screamed as I closed the gap across the yard. Several feet before touching the pavement, I gripped the ball, reared my arm back, and threw it at his legs.

Jay nearly fell trying to jump out of the way--but it worked--I missed him. The ball bounced away and rolled to the base of the dogwood tree at the side of the house.

"Go Nick go!" Jay yelled, now collapsed on the black tar of the patio. Nick rounded third and ran, his arms cutting the air in from of him, toward Jay.

It was too late. I laughed and dropped my knees in the dry grass.

"Yeah!" he yelled, landing with two feet on the corner of the pavement.

Kickball, even with only three people, a cheap plastic ball, and makeshift bases, turned out to be fun. Not because that's all we had, but because we were playing together. I think I laughed more at the little dudes running around the backyard yelling at their twin brother teammate to finally beat their older brother at something important--like kickball.

In those moments, I think, without us knowing it, we bonded. That's what guys do, play sports, throw, kick or catch balls, steal a base to say they did, kick a home run to prove you could. All the time being a part of something that we couldn't recognize, the whole time building our brotherly relationship. But to us, we played because it was fun, because there was nothing else to, because we loved running through the grass under the stiff, outstretched pine boughs far above our heads casting looming shadows dancing across the yard.

Respect

After Nancie called me that night, slurring, spitting, and garbling her words, it made me think. She was a grown woman calling her thirteen year old godson, drunk or high on drugs, in the middle of the night, attempting some sort of conversation as if nothing was out of the ordinary, as if she was just calling up to see how I was doing. Completely normal. That, obviously, didn't sit well.

But something else began to bother me. Wasn't I supposed to show respect to my elders? I had this feeling, this subtle yet pervasive feeling sitting in my gut, like after eating too many chicken nuggets. I knew what she did wasn't right, so did Nancie, if she even remembered, so would anyone. Was there something wrong with me that I wouldn't look at my godmother the same way again? I'm not so sure it was even a choice, I don't think I could have the same amount of respect for her. Drugs were wrong, my parents always told me, I learned about it from school and from Grandma and Pop Pop.

"Stay away from drugs, Jonny," Pop Pop would say. "They'll never get you anywhere."

"You got to be carful, make sure," Grandma would always tell me. "Don't listen if people try and give you some."

I always agreed.

Nancie, for the most part, was the only adult that acted stupid in front of me. She was never like the other adults I knew: responsible, well-kept, modest, even tempered, never swearing, and the 'going to bed early to get up for work the next day' type. At that point some line had been crossed, some wall broken and pulled down, revealing her to me in the light of reality. I learned then that respect was not a choice. No matter how hard I might try to like someone, or act nicely and civil around the person, true, deep-down respect can never be given, only earned. It didn't take an adult to figure that out.

Family First?

Some people have their own opinions. Some disagree, some get angry, others never forgive or forget. Family, though, I always thought, should come before any rash action or hurtful, selfishly satisfying comment. We can't get away from the fact that we always seem to find comments like this slipping out of our mouths--at least my mouth--because it's so easy to give in to our fundamental ape-like instincts driving us with fear, adrenaline, and spur of the moment impulses. We're only humans after all.

When I find those vomit-tasting comments slipping past my better judgment and tongue-biting defense, they never sound as poinient or justifying as it did resonating in my head. I usually know pretty quickly that the statement was out of line, immediately deflating my own argument with the reality that I gave in to parsimonious satisfaction, took the easier way, became the lesser person. I think, at least hope, that momentary relapses like these are all a part of being human.

It's what we do after we step out of line that truly defines us. Do we make an effort to apologize, call the person back, admit that we crossed a line? We can't hope to be perfect people, no one can. But, I think, it's admitting and accepting our own inherent fallibility that helps us develop, grow into people that become the bearers of integrity. Admitting you're wrong isn't admitting a weakness--it's showing you care enough to not only to give respect, but to be respected.

People disagreeing is normal, it will always be a part of human interaction, but above all, the bottom line is that family comes first. Nancie was never a part of the family. She ran away when she was fifteen, usurped money her whole life, cared nothing for the well being of her parents, both physically and mentally. She turned away, spit in the face of what matters most, and never looked back.

After all, there are plenty of enemies in the world! Why waste our time fighting with the few friends and family we have?

Nancie, Again

And changing her name? What is that? Literally, from the very moment her money train ended with my grandparents and Aunt Steffie, she changed her name from the family that supported her and all the problems that came from using drugs her entire life, to the name of the family that left her at the hospital for adoption. And Grandma and My Aunt Steffie's response was "Oh, she's turning her life around, it's a fresh start for her, she's changed," looking on with glossy, wide eyes admiring Nancie's brave and noble turnaround? I saw them as awestruck bystanders

It was stupidity, blinding, inarguable stupidity. It was almost a tragedy, I thought, that the dumbest people I knew, the most brainless human beings I ever had the displeasure of talking with, were people in my own family. They put up a wall, even Pop Pop, from the rest of their brains. When it came to everything else they were fine: cooking, sports, being a grandma, but when it came to Nancie, everything changed, rational thought was suspended.

Maybe Nancie was trying to build a new life, have a fresh start, a fresh name, a new man? No. I couldn't even bring myself to try and imagine that. I knew it wasn't true. As unfair and closed to possibilities as that mindset is, nothing could make me think Nancie was turning a new leaf. The behavior resembled the virus', take, take, take what you can until you have drained everything there is to gain--and then leave, depart for the next host. The behaviors are indistinguishable.

Core

Slowly the planet cooled, it's outer part first, its crust, and began to resemble the solid land formations that paved the way for eath's current form. This fragile layer, like an egg's shell, floated on an inner sea of liquid magma. Volcanoes and eruptions dotted the landscape with neon magma and clouds of steaming gases way more often than today.

Now the earth, still young and hot, floats and moves along the magma surface, subject to the powerful convection currents that churn below. Land masses crush together and something's got to give, sending crust plunging downward and melting back into the core: a subduction zone. Magma rises from the interior and becomes new land in areas where the crust is pulling away from each other.

I thought of it like a water balloon containing its liquid interior, holding together its heated core, delicately floating on it magma ridden interior.

Evening Phone Calls of the Past, Continued...

"Okay, thanks Pop Pop," I said, turning on the TV. "I'm putting it on now."

I had seen shows like this this before, explaining how the continents formed with words like tectonic plates, continental drift, and subduction zones. The entire concept drew me in: that it took millions, in fact billions of years for the earth, spinning and rotating silently around our sun, to be molded and formed into its current shape, like an artisan kneads, presses, and shapes his spinning clay into brilliant ceramic vases.

I watched the show, knowing Pop Pop was too. The earth was 4.54 billion years old. I knew the earth was that old, I heard that number before, but it's practicality? Billion? What did that even mean? [] That was before the earth had a moon, and the surface was still liquid hot from it's recent formation, churning and revolving around our newly formed sun. Slowly the planet cooled, the outer part first, the crust,