Grandpa Thomas

I've started fictionalizing the piece. In reality, my grandpa died of cancer, and he wasn't from Iowa. My dad's dad did not die in an automobile accident. He drowned in the Mississippi. And, my grandpa's last name is not Thomas. Look at all that fiction! Another piece I'm working on. Still in progress.

I suppose it all started with my Grandpa Thomas. He was my mother’s dad, so I suppose he was human. But, when I was a kid, he seemed so much more than that. He was untouchable. He was a god among mortal men. His brown wavy hair, square jaw, and steely eyes gave him the appearance of a normal man. He was far from it though. Viewed through the idealistic eyes of a child, he was more like a superhero. Clark Kent was Superman. Bruce Wayne was Batman, and Jackson Thomas was Grandpa. There was no easier way to put it. To complete the picture, with the confidence he exuded combined with his easy charm, you couldn’t help see a little John Wayne in him.

He once sent me a postcard when I was a kid. The front cover had a painting with a little girl walking through the countryside. When I looked at it, the picture was replaced with him as a young man. He grew up in Iowa. I could see him walking through the tall prairie grass swirling around him with his palms up. He felt the course grass with his calloused hands. They had been made hard by the wooden handle of the ax he used to split wood to keep his family’s home warm in the winter. As he walked through the fields by his house smelling the sweet scent of lilacs in the air, he would dream of a life beyond his mundane rural existence. He wanted to see the world. And, so he did. Years before Jack Kerouac published his book about his hitchhiking experience in On The Road, my Grandpa Thomas found rides when he could and saw the world. After exploring the States, he enlisted in the Army and went to Korea where he acted as a Colonel.

All of these details added to the mythic background of my burly Grandfather. While some men my wither and fade, I thought my Grandpa would never perish. That’s why it was such a shock to all of us when he died unexpectedly in June, when I was eight.

I came came down the stairs after I had showered and got ready for school, and I found my mom crying in the kitchen. This was the first time I had ever seen her cry, so it was alarming. You have these idealized concepts about your parents when you’re a child. Parents are supposed to be invulnerable to the things that afflict most children. They are never frightened. Sorrow does not trouble them. They are simply there to protect you from those insecurities. Seeing her there, looking confused and scared, gave her the appearance of a heartbroken little girl. Something shifted inside of me, and I watched as a small piece of armor fell from my mother’s exterior.

“What’s wrong, Momma?” I walked to the table, and sat down nervously.

“It’s your Grandpa,” she sobbed quietly. She didn’t bother qualifying which Grandpa she was talking about, because my Dad’s dad died when he was a kid. He was driving drunk, and accidentally drove his car off of a bridge.

She didn’t continue, so I prodded. “What happened?”
She sniffed. “He died last night at the hospital.”

The room came in to sharp focus. I became aware of the feeling of my sweaty palms on the vinyl tablecloth. Small grains of sugar left from someone sweetening their cereal stuck to pads of my fingertips. I could feel the warmth from my socks as they pressed against my feet. All of this happened at the same time I was trying to get a hold of the question that was swirling in my brain. Grandpa is dead? How could that happen? People you care about don’t just die! My parents weren’t going to die. “It’s not possible,” I thought to myself.

“How did he die?” I stuttered.

“Something was wrong with his brain. It happened all of a sudden,” she wept.

Later I would find out that he had a brain aneurysm. A blood vessel in his brain swelled up like a balloon and popped. It filled his head with blood, and he died shortly after he got to the hospital.

My mother gathered herself, and tried her best to replace the armor. She wiped away her tears the best she could and said, “You’ve got to get to school. You’re going to be late.”

After being rushed out the door, numbness took over my body. So many changes happened within the last ten minutes that would make thing different forever. Death had swooped in and rattled my perception of the world. It continued to do so when we drove to Iowa for Grandpa Thomas’ funeral.

My parents had known each other since they were little kids. Since my dad’s homelife wasn’t ideal, he would often spend time at the Thomas’ house. When his dad died, Grandpa Thomas became like a father to him. In many ways, both of my parents lost their father.

At my Grandpa’s wake, I approached his casket and peered inside. It was the first time I’d seen a dead body before. It was my Grandpa in there, but it wasn’t. Death had robbed him of something vital. Gone was his confidence and charm. Gone was the idea that he was something more than human. Seeing his body, unblinking, not breathing, it wasn’t the man I remembered. I realized then, he was gone forever.

My dad led us back to the uncomfortable metal folding chairs that had been placed in aisles at the funeral home. People shuffled in and out, and stood at the front of the room, and peered in the casket looking at the body that used to be my grandpa. At one point during the wake, I looked over at my father, and was shocked. He was staring at the casket, and I noticed a single tear rolling down his cheek. I had never seen my father cry before, and once again, that familiar feeling settled in to the pit of my stomach.

After the wake, I stood by my father while the preacher said the closing benediction. Choreographed gun blasts echoed through the stifling air.

“Daddy, why are those men shooting guns?” Sweat poured from my armpits, as the uniformed men discharged the shells and reloaded.

“It’s called a twenty-one gun salute.”
“Why are the doing that?”
“Because your Grandpa was in the Korean War.”
“Right, but—”
“Shh,” he quieted me.

Concluding the blasts, family members scurried forward to retrieve the spent shells. Lilies from atop the casket were dispersed as mementos. Small trinkets to consolidate memory.

I clutched a shell in my pocket. My finger traced the barrel of the bullet. The casket had been stripped of all of its flowers. It looked uncomfortably naked. I walked forward apprehensively clutching a lily in my hand. Slowly, I extended my hand and placed the flower on top of it. It felt like everyone was watching me, but when I turned around, no one was. With tear stained faced, and the occasional weak smile and laugh, most shuffled back to their car, oblivious to me.

I walked back to the minivan with my family, and soon, we were headed back to Minnesota. From the backseat, I thought about a lot on the way home. What wa s happening to the adults around me? Was I simply unaware of their humanity? Their normalness. Did my mother and father share the same emotions that I experience on a day-to-day basis? Where they just like me? Were they just grown up versions of myself who happened to have children?

One thing I knew for certain. No one was safe now. We could all break.