When imagination fills in the gaps of memory

My grandparents — my father’s father and mother — always kept a jar of Bit-O-Honey candies on their kitchen counter. The glass jar clasped shut with a metal clamp. I was barely tall enough to reach the counter. I would stand on my tip toes, flick the jar toward me with my fingertips, slide the jar into my hands, unfasten the lid, grab a candy, unwrap it, pop it in my mouth, stuff the waxy wrapper deep into my pocket, put the lid back on, and slide the jar back up on the counter before anyone noticed me.

I would then turn my attention to the harder task of chewing the candy without breaking a tooth. It was like chewing on a rock that would slowly soften if you gave it time. The sweet taste was worth it. When slowly chewing proved too much of a chore, or when I needed to conceal the presence of candy in my mouth, I’d use my tongue to slide the Bit-O-Honey into the back corner of my gums below my molars where I could just let it slowly grow softer and dissolve.

Next to the kitchen my grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles would sit around an oval table, talking or eating or playing cards. A half-filled ashtray sat in the middle of the table for my grandparents’ cigarettes. Above the table was a large framed work of art that as a child I believed my grandfather himself must have painted. Now that I’m grown I have seen the same image in enough homes to know that he did not paint it. Yet still when I see the painting, my initial thought is oftentimes, Hey, how did my grandfather’s painting get here?

You would probably know the image if you saw it: Eric Enstrom’s “Grace.” It’s actually a black-and-white photograph that was later colorized. The photograph is of a gray-haired man in a dark room sitting alone at a table, bowing his head and saying a prayer over a small loaf of bread and a bowl of soup. A large Bible rests on the table nearby. The man in the image appears tired yet thankful. I can’t remember now if the words “Give us this day our daily bread” actually appeared in the image itself, or perhaps engraved on the frame, or if at that early age I simply connected the image itself to the Lord’s Prayer I had learned in church. But that’s how I remember it, seeing the image above my grandparents at the table while I sucked on hard candy in secret, knowing that my grandmother and grandfather were not as old as the man in the painting but neither were they young like my parents and aunt and uncles. They would smoke and smile and laugh and play cards beneath the image of this quiet, simple image, the man’s presence whispering to my young mind, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

My grandfather’s book collection was not large – I remember one bookshelf no more than three shelves tall. But he had a number of cartoon and comic collections including Peanuts, Doonesbury, and a Best of Cartoons series from the 50s. I’d sit and read the comics, never understanding the Doonesbury strips but enjoying the drawings—the veteran in the helmet, the politician wearing a suit, the talking cigarette.

I’d put the comics back on the shelf and move on to the next shelf, which held a hardback series on the history of inventions and creators. My grandfather apparently saw me reading these books often enough that for the next few years I would receive my own copies for Christmases and birthdays, given to me as gifts. Grandpa and Grandma were not the sort of doting grandparents whose lives revolved around us grandkids. I don’t recall them heaping praise on me or my siblings and cousins. I don’t recall a lot of hugs or words of affection in those handful of years before they died. But what might have seemed like detachment to me as a child I now know to be simply a different way of paying attention, the kind of affection you achieve only with a slight bit of distance.

Their gifts were nods to acknowledge me. They noticed what I was noticing. They caught glimpses of me.

They’ve both been dead now for nearly all of my life. I wasn’t even ten years old before they both died of cancer. I mourn the many lost chances to know them better. My father has told me several times over the years, “ You would’ve really liked them.”

It’s strange now to imagine their apartment again, to consider the things they were noticing during my brief time as their grandson: A child sitting near the bookshelf, reading books of comics and inventions and creators. Perhaps they noticed the same grandson staring up over their heads through the smoke to see the painting of a weary, grateful man. Who knows, perhaps they noticed their grandson sneaking the jar from the counter for a piece of candy. Who knows what they noticed, what they saw. Who knows where my imagination works to fill in the gaps of memory, perhaps a bit too generously.

When we speak of the dead we sometimes say that perhaps they are watching over us still, checking in on us. Most days I’m not a big believer in such Family Circus versions of the afterlife, but occasionally it seems fitting and useful to imagine my grandparents as having some sort of presence still. Not doting over me. Not giving me hugs and praise. But maybe just sitting there at the table still, smoking their cigarettes, laughing and chatting, noticing what’s going on back here on earth and not making a big fuss over it, yet perhaps contemplating how this all might manifest into some good gift later on, becoming something sweeter, like a rock that would slowly soften if you gave it time.

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Thanks for reading . . . Now go vote next Tuesday!

Andrew