memory #85: The old man in the wheelchair

 

It was difficult for my grandfather to accept his body was failing. There was a raging wind in his frail shell. His soul was young and willing, but his days were full of long winters, and they came like an avalanche, weighing him down and suffocating life out of him. He realized there'd be no more springs. "I guess we'll be taking my elephant skin to a nursing home," he said, laughing as my young son tenderly caressed the pachyderm skin he found so exotic and beautiful. "Qué piensas astronauta," he asked my son. My son smiled and rested his cheek on his great-grandfather's arm.

Only a week after our visit, perhaps two, my grandparents grudgingly moved to an assisted living facility. There, they befriended an old man in a wheelchair who never had visitors. He hadn't seen his son or daughter for years. Every time I drove Mom and Dad to Muscatine, Iowa, we'd invite him over for a visit. We'd bring him sweets, word puzzles, and knickknacks, but mainly, we'd engage him in conversation. He'd share memories of his wife and kids. Sometimes, it was emotional, but I always managed to hold my composure. Whenever he saw us, he'd roll down the hallway as fast as he could. He'd wave and greet us with, "Buen dia, amigos! Buen dia!"

After my grandparents passed, I was so preoccupied with my problems and issues that I pushed him into the deep recesses of my mindscape, where he slowly faded into obscurity. But years later, while talking to a friend whose parents were contemplating moving to an old folks home, I recalled the tiny, old man. Ever since, when dwelling on my mortality, I imagine him in his wheelchair, by the nursing home entrance, underneath the apple blossoms, anxiously waiting for my arrival.