Grandmother's eyes

A white house with windows into a pink-walled home, a creaky wooden deck holds a white wooden bench with paint chipping off. We sit as the sun sets with orange, yellow, and red after a day of work. The door with an iron ‘C’ marking my grandmother’s house open to let a musky air out from the spoiled food and moldy sponges, running a small hand over the iron as the adults handle the musk. I was young, like anyone would be when she watched me as my mother went off to adventures unknown. We made cookies in her absence, I cleaned my grandmother’s glasses’ for once, played with an old telephone wrapped in cloth, and on that white wooden bench with paint chipping off we creaked as my mother pulled up again.

The same bench as my mother and I sat as she cried when my grandmother’s face lit up at me, but not her. The world moving fast past my vision like so many suns crossed the horizon. Yet we continued on as Grandmother did not. She cried as Grandmother wouldn’t eat or talk unless she saw her daughter in my eyes. Earth moving fast through all of us and the gaps grew longer, people forgot our names, the nurses called less, Grandmother remained the same in the same town, face, and mind. The pieces dripping away as a tap that can’t be fixed.

We head to our unliked home for my grandmother. She sits in silence as a skeleton, afraid to touch her frail skin we all kiss her forehead, it was papyrus with cracks and creaks. Her smile only for her favorite daughter’s eyes. They leave for only a moment, for a time those eyes never return, they grow and shed tears but they return less and less to my grandmother.

Grandmother saw her sister instead of her favorite daughter’s eyes. The last thing she remembered before everything became a blur, they spoke of trouble and cigarettes, young love, death, broken bonds and bones, and many, many, many children. The race was won by the youngest, yet one child buried. What became of them and how without them they would be lost; their children as home, and everything the world would give. Even together grey and cold they still act like school children but time has stopped for Grandmother.

We wear black to see my grandmother. Her glasses on just as they should be, eyes closed, her body, and mind at peace. She stopped traffic just as she used to like she was supposed to, and my aunt got to say goodbye once more. My aunt was lost from time to time, looking for her sister, finding her in the shiny white box with blue, pink, and yellow flowers draped over her feet as the pastor went on. A life lived with loss and heartbreak in a town of twelve thousand. A violin and flute to send her off, a simple sorry to fuel the six bearers as she is set with her last love.

Years have passed as her favorite daughter’s eyes grow older and wiser. The white house now home to another Grandmother, one where children play at the stone well and the white bench swings with fresh paint. My aunt with her sister once more as children watching their children turn gray and withered. They crochet angel wings and white doilies as they talk about life and how full they feel. Reunited with children and grandchildren too young to know the world. While my grandmother’s eyes show through her favorite daughter and everyone remembers the past and fun had to be with one Grandmother.