Reconnected

I asked him once "Weren't you scared?"

He didn't answer, he opened his eyes wider and looked around.

The pond in the garden was there for a while now, I remember when I was little he kept digging the hole in the ground for days until he finished. He kept disappearing to be found somewhere in the basement simply searching for a screwdriver he lost 7 years ago. Only hunger could bring him back upstairs, when he was starving he was always grumpy demanding food.

Once he started a project he would not stop until it's finished.

He is probably the most mindful person I've ever knew. That's how it looked from my perspective at the time... Until I realized that there's more behind that mindful mask.

I needed to grow up to realize he is simply running away from his mind...

- and he is also dehydrated!

The garden had a special place in his heart, it was so special that you could enjoy it with him and appreciate from afar. But don't you dare touch anything without his permission.

"-Whoa whoa whaaa"

"-Ba ba ba poi".

Only we knew what that meant - those were Grandpa's warning noises.

The first one meant that you are definitely stepping on one of his favourite flowers! The noise and the look was enough scary, he did lift his eyebrows in the shape of an arch and didn't say a word after. Usually we were then up on our tip toes walking away from the minefield.

The second meant that the job is done for today and it is a time to sit down on the bench and enjoy. I loved that moment but subconsciously I wanted to run away. He was always asking me the questions about my future that I didn't want to answer.

He knew a lot about life but since he was young everything changed.

I didn't want to be disrespectful, usually... I just listened but sometimes we argued. We argued a lot. Multigenerational disagreements. He was worried of my future and I was worried that I won't handle my future for him. He was scared of me not having a life I deserve. I was scared that I'll disappoint him.

I still am.

The garden was full of pear trees, he cared for them for the past 50 years and their smell is something that always moves me in time. It was a smell of care, a smell of joy. I always imagine how happy are those trees with him. But it wasn't always like this. My Grandpa was always in his head, always doing something but not thinking of how we are all feeling, how the garden ecosystem is feeling. It all felt militant and under his control to the point that there's no space for a breath.

Until the day... When I realised that the mindfulness he seems to practice so deeply was only a mask.

He was rushing to finish one of his new garden project that will affect the water in the pond and pollute it all. I told him that this is not a great idea but he wouldn't listen.

Militant as always, he raised his eyebrows and he said "you don't know many things".

He finished his tea and left the house. I followed him but I was way behind. When I stood on the stairs I saw him reaching for a pear straight from the tree and giving it a great bite, to be then seeing him collapsing on the grass. I shouted to my grandma to call an ambulance, but I already knew that as scary as it looked he was only in shock and it will pass soon.

When I stood by him, in this moment I've seen all of it in his eyes, the fear, the trauma, the struggle, the pain of communism that touched him so deeply, and the love he got for life... And for me.

Dziadek was never keen to show his vulnerable part but there was this one thing that he was allergic to - the sting of a wasp.

The wasps frightened him since he was a child, having a bad allergic reaction to it. Biting the pear with a wasp on, was the least mindful moment for him... Thanks God the wasp stung in the area of the gums not the throat so his face swollen but he still could breath properly. Anti-inflammatory injection solved the problem but grounded him for a day, and grounded his idea for a new project.

In the evening he called me to his bedroom to sit on his bed, he looked at me with his still swollen eyes and said "I am sorry, I was selfish. I wanted to do all to keep my pain away from me so I wanted to cause the pain to others..." I was watching him in silence with a gentle smile "it's ok Dziadku".

"I only now realized that I've never had much and I always struggled and suffered, I never wanted to face it... The loneliness, the pain, the betrayal... It was so deep in me that I just wanted to owe something for once, keep it for me and rule it as best and as worst as I can, as things were kept away from me - the success, the joy, the hope. The days passed and now life is different but I couldn't forget about the revenge. I wanted everything and everyone to pay for what has happened. But none of you and neither this garden was responsible and guilty. I was selfish, I wanted to remove the access to the clear water that I built for the nature around where all the insects relayed on it during the heatwave. And what for? No doubt why the wasp stung me" - he laughed.

I laughed too knowing that the wasp stung him because he was so focused on proving all of us that he is right, that he just didn't look at the pear he bites! We laughed whole night and at this point I knew that the universe is the system of connections that cannot be messed around, and the past can't be changed but can be healed in the future. And the future is now.

Today it's all of us enjoying the garden with less projects in place and more grounding and mindfulness. The mindfulness which allows us to accept what was, what is and what will be, with juicy pears in our mouths, and happy wasps by the clear water pond. Just as it meant to be.

~This is a fictional story dedicated to my Dziadek, my Grandpa, thank you for being my Mindful Hero <3 Your Granddaughter