I’m pretty sure I developed my prowling and curiosity at my grandparents’ place. So many things you didn’t see all of the time, so many things that were different than what little you knew about anything. So many things that spanned ages of time — to a child at least. A lot of stuff got kept by my grandparents — and yet my grandmother also had a clean house.
But the storage building out back … well, I spent all afternoon in there today. We spent time in there as children, probably hide-and-seek and trying to figure out the boxes and stacks of things. I’m sure some of this stuff hasn’t been touched in years, or more. And today I glanced around a few rooms, but concentrated on the books.
I found a few other things too, but this was the first thing I found:
This was a pre-kindergarten gift I’d received. I could place that based on the sudden memories that returned. I hadn’t thought about this helmet in decades, and suddenly there it was in my hands. We were in the apartments at the time, so before I was in school. It explained why I liked guys like Art Monk and Gary Clark and why I’ve always found the Washington Redskins’ color scheme to be one of my favorite. Turns out I was programmed early. I believe this helmet, and some toy shoulder pads and a jersey and so on, were a gift from an aunt.
I’d literally walked into the outbuilding, turned right, stepped up into the first of two side rooms, walked through there and into the back room. You could walk a few short steps in before your path is blocked by boxes and such. I looked down in the first one and found that helmet.
“This was mine,” I said to my grandfather, “and I’m taking it with me … If you don’t mind.”
Of course he did not. I’d cleaned part of the storage area for him and took a few other things off his hands that he wouldn’t have to deal with, books and other things. I found some things he’d want and a few things my mother would like to have.
Later, she pulled out an old photo album, most of the contents inside being older than her. Inside were pictures of her grandparents:
I have a few memories of him, but not her.
Here’s another photograph that was inside that albums, my mother, my uncle, their parents and my mother’s father’s parents.
I found two letters from my great-grandfather, W.K., to his son, my grandfather, standing behind him in that photo. Aubra was away at college. In one note his dad was reminding him to write his mother. In the other letter he explained that he could not afford to give him a car and put him through school — the more things change, right? — and gently explained why he had said this or that about some choice the younger man was considering.
I found a book my mother and uncle gave to their mother when they were very young. They’d inscribed it for Mother’s Day. And Mom told me about the last birthday card she got from her mom, a little girl on a beach and the note she’d written in it, which fits pretty much everything.
And so on this Thanksgiving, difficult or joyous or perfectly routine, I suppose it isn’t enough to be thankful for what you have, but what you had and what you remember.
