lovaliss's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My dad's bear and my grandma My dad has been watching and chasing this certain bear for six years. Last night he shot it with his bow. My dad never uses guns to hunt anymore because he thinks it's unfair. I respect that about him. But he reminds me of a little boy when he talks about this bear. His smile stretches in the picture with him over his trophy. He said it's so big it will go in the record books. He made the rounds today calling his friends to tell them about the bear. They all congratulated him but held back their disappointment, they were all trying to catch this bear. I hear my dad telling Val Dee Pendalton about his bear hunt and the wolverines. My dad nods his head like a knowing little boy thrilled to give someone a piece of information they didn't know, I watch my dad talking and think how cute he is, I suddenly see him shrink before me into a magically little boy that was pretty shy, always small for his age, and didn't have many friends. I see my dad back in his old classroom oblivious to the teacher and the rest of the students as he aims his ruler at the animal pictures on the wall and in great detail pretends to cock his trigger and shoot his gun, even jerking back a little at the imaginary kick as the gun explodes. I love my dad. When I was younger I used to ask my dad why he didn't have very many friends, he said, "Because I don't like anybody else as much as I like myself." My dad is actually a well known hunter, he writes articles for archery magazines. One of his good friend's that used to come stay with us and hunt has his own TV show now on the outdoor channel. My dad records it every week. I visited my grandma today. She had cancer on her nose and as they scraped it out, it ended up, over time removing half of her nose. She's been going through a series of plastic surgeries to reconstruct a nose. They took skin from her scalp and forehead and attatched it down to her nose. It looked like a fleshy umbical cord. They let the skin grow and then took the live tissue they had been growing and used that to reconstruct her left nostril. It's bizarre but amazing. Seeing her kind of in this weak state reminded me of something that happened a few years ago when my grandpa died. I forgot about it until tonight. I found out he died and went home as soon as possibly. The second I saw her I started crying, so did she. My grandma is a strong woman who rarely wallows over things that can't be helped. I have never seen her look frail or vicitimized, that's important to note. When she very first found out it might be cancer I said, "What will we do then?" in a fearful childish way. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, She was always this way. Her mother died when she was a little girl and they weren't allowed to speak about her after her death, her father was too sad, he put all of her pictures away and removed anything that reminded them of her. She had a lot of siblings and had to take care of them at a very young age, they were extremely poor. She once told me a story about being a little girl and wanting to go to the county fair, but they didn't have enough money. She stood outside the fence trying to peek in through the cracks but all she could see was the top of the ferris wheel going around and around. I feel like crying when I think of that little girl. The day she married my grandpa was the first time in her life she ever felt secure. And now he had died on her. I stayed there all day and night while she talked about my grandpa and we looked at her pictures. It was the first time I had ever seen any of these things. I saw her as a woman with a husband and family and life for the first time that night, not just an old grandma to me. I didn't want to leave her, but as I got up to go I walked away trying not to cry. She followed me to the door. I didn't want to turn and look back, but I did. There she was leaning up against the fridge her frame bending under her sorrow and her hand over her mouth to hold in her cries. But she did cry out, a twisted cry escaped her lips as she reached her hand out to me as if she was about to collapse. My heart broke and I rushed back to her sobbing and picking her up in my arms. She held onto me in this desperate way and cried, in such a way I had never seen in my life. It frightened me. She was always strong but now I was holding her. I didn't want to leave her, not for the night, the night after they die is the worst night. You lay in bed and feel more alone than you've ever felt, and I can't imagine how alone it would feel in a bed you had been sharing with your husband for over 60 years. I pulled away and started to leave but looked back to still see her bent over in sobs, I would be an animal if I left her now, I went back again. That is one of the moments that has hurt most in my life. I finally made myself leave, but I cried the whole way home. My little brother Dallin was with me the whole time, just watching. I don't remember if he said anything, and I don't think he cried. My senior year of high school I stayed the night at my grandma's house every week. I was close to her for that reason. That's when my grandpa went crazy. I watched him slowly revert back to childlike behaviors that year. Alzheimer's raced through is body doing in one year what it took most in ten. I was glad when I graduated because I couldn't stand seeing him anymore, it was too upsetting, he had this look in his eye, this glazed unalert look. Which wasn't my grandpa, my grandpa was funny and sharp. I felt like he was decomposing in front of me. I many times wonder if my grandpa saw that scene where I held onto his Mary that night. 9:26 p.m. - 2005-05-29 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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