Another letter.

Our Maternal Grandparents lived several hours away. So a visit to or from them was usually an over night visit. I found my Granddad sitting on the porch one day. I must have been a kid who talked all the time, because Granddad finally told me if I was quiet and watched real close, I could see the clouds move. It was a quiet summer day and they didn't look like they were moving . I must have been about five. But, I sat beside my Grandfather, real quiet and watched real close. And, it was like magic. They WERE moving. And changing shape. We sat quite awhile quietly watching the clouds. Another special moment for me. Years later, my grandfather was dying of cancer. They still lived in the same house, but I had moved even further away. I saw him when I could, but not enough. When the end came near, Mom went to stay with them, so he could be at home as long as possible. She wrote to me that it couldn't be much longer. I wrote to him and told him that even though we were so far apart when I was growing up, he had done his part to help me grow. I reminded him of the cloud story (not the kind of thing an adult remembers and he never knew how it effected me.) and told him I still loved to watch coulds move and it always reminded me of him. That was one letter that made an impact. Mom told me that every visitor had to read the letter to him. The home care nurse had to read it every day and Mom read it to him many times. I did something right! I've always felt good that I could help him in some small way.

He was one of those easy going men who laughed a lot. He was the worst tease. My Brother S. is so much like him. Granddad even did his part to make that buck sheep even meaner. He would use a branch to poke at the buck through the fence whenever it got near. He teased everyone and everything. If a pet fell asleep, Granddad would find a leaf to tickle it's nose. All this teasing made him fair game when we got a chance. He fell asleep in his chair one day with his head tipped back. He was snoring up a storm. Someone put a little piece of paper on his mouth and he snored it up in the air. Then Mom gave us some mini marshmellows and we were putting them on his mouth so he could snore them up in the air too. He was blowing mini marshmellows and we were chasing them and putting them back and giggeling till we woke him up. There should have been video camers back then.

His home was near a cemetary. It was a favorite place to go for a walk. He would tell us stories about some of his acquaintances buried there. I don't know how many were true, but they were always fun. I just can't remember them now. Except for one. The door had been left open on one of the small mausoleums and he coaxed my cousin C. and I inside. On the stained glass window ledge in back was a pipe and some tobacco. Granddad told us that the family came out at dusk and smoked, and we would be able to see the thin curl of smoke if we watched later on. We were much too easy to convince. That evening he took us out after supper to sit in the yard and we saw the smoke. C. was visiting from California (her Mother and my Mother were actually cousins) and we two girls were staying with my Grandparents. C. and I had an awful time getting to sleep that night.

Granddad had a brother named Glen. Glen used to tell Granddad that if he (Glen) died first, he better leave a cup of coffee on the table each night for Glen. I was a teenager when we had to go over for Glens funeral. After the family had seperated that evening and it was just the Grandparents, my Parnets and J.,S. and I, we settled down for bed. It was a small two bedroom house and the open single room upstairs hadn't been finished enough for us to sleep in yet. Or maybe it was too cold, I'm not sure. But, us three kids were in sleeping bags across the living room floor. Everyone was asleep when there was an awful rucus in the kitchen. J., S. and I were sitting up confused when the adults came from the bedrooms into the living room. In the conversation everyone agreed the noise had come from the kitchen. The adults climbed across us to reach the kitchen and when the light was turned on, there in the middle of the floor was a dented coffee pot. Grandmom was yelling that it had been down in the sink. Not on the counter. It couldn't have fallen up and out of the sink. Granddad started laughing. "We forgot to leave a cup of coffee for Glen. He warned us." I'm pretty sure everyone but my Father believed it. He took years of convincing, but we had too many ghost stories, and he finally just quit arguing. Anyway, Granddad and Grandmom left a cup of coffee on the counter each night for a long time after that. They always claimed that Glen came to drink it. We never caught either of them drinking it.