Cheney
Just a flash of memory but beside the door in our house is a photo. A photo of my great grand father with deformed arms and hands. Eventually his legs were too but I was too young to see that because he was put in a nursing home and my family wouldn't let me see him. I remember that smile though....never saw him without it. I thought he didn't know my name because he only called me "Honey".
I'm sure there was a lot of loss but no one ever mentioned it--certainly not him. He just smiled that smile every Sunday morning and said, Cmon Honey! and picked me up in those deformed arms and carried me to church.
He was a fisherman all his life and the town fishmonger. He filled his cart each day and pushed it to town. I'm sure he had great plans for his first great grandchild like he did for his children and grandchildren and his disabilities meant the loss of those dreams. He never took me fishing. He never took me out on his row boat or any of the things he did with the others before he got sick.
But though there is very little I remember, I remember that smile and cheerful call to "C'mon Honey!" and he taught me to smile in the face of adversity and to live when it looks like you can't.
2 Comments
Recommended Comments