Some Unforgettable People

they do, but remember edgar, they are also 'part' of him, genetically they are part of him, and he is part of them, and you; beyond memory, he is within you, and lives on as you do in your children.

don't "ball up" Edgar.

Sadie Williams and Marvin Gray had tied the knot after only a few short months of courtship, creating an instant family of five. Included in the arrangement were Rusty, myself and Pete, ages five, three and one; we were Sadie's children from a failed first marriage. She had sneaked away from her husband as he lay in a drunken stupor in their bedroom in south Texas, migrating west with her parents and children. Bitterly opposed to Marvin, the parents, instead of attending the wedding, returned home. The defiant newlyweds hauled a battered trailer house behind as they set out with their children in pursuit of work and a better life. The search became a long, unrewarding ordeal, as we moved like an infestation of fleas up and down the underbelly of California.
We came to Calwa in 1946, almost two years later, in an heroic effort to end the nomadic existence. Marvin drove us to the lot on Mason Street, where he had built a tiny cabin. We poured like spilled rocks out of the car, a 1928 Dodge Victory Six, and gazed with wide wonder at the cabin and undisturbed desert sand. Three year old Pete went immediately on his knees, uttering a small cry. Seven year old Rusty and I looked on with some consternation as he gingerly pulled two goat's head stickers from his bare heel. Our eyes traveled over the flat ground, registering doilies of stickers, plus ten or twelve red ant mounds, and practically nothing else, from the dirt road all the way to the railroad switch yard in the far background. A few clumps of thirsty trees and underbrush broke up the monotonous sameness a bit further down. Across the main road, on the corner, was a cotton seed processing plant. We had no further time to contemplate, for Marvin ushered us into the little room, with Sadie having some difficulty, carrying as she did a toddler named Jasper in her arms.
The new home was smaller than a single car garage. It had an enclosed corner space for the commode and tub, the rest being dominated by a full-size bed. The stove, sink and icebox hugged the area furthest from the bathroom, where the solitary window hung in lonely isolation. I quickly realized that the children were to sleep on pallets. "You kids go out and play."
Sadie's invitation was kindly, yet I couldn't fathom the reason she and Marvin showed no concern for our unshod feet. I opened my mouth to inquire about it, but, knowing it never helped to ask about anything, clammed up. "I'm gonna go exploring," Rusty announced.
"Me too."
Being only five, I couldn't keep up with him. He rapidly vanished into one of the brushy areas, goat's heads notwithstanding. I turned my attention elsewhere, choosing each step with the utmost caution, coming to an ant hill. Here were gigantic slow moving dignified creatures, comparable to nothing in my experience. After following their food line a while, I looked up and saw Rusty, improvised spear in hand, returning. "I'm going to make a bow. I found a good tree over there."
I greeted the news with ambivalence. On the one hand, such activities were as interesting as dirt; on the other I had fresh memories of getting shot in the corner of the eye with one of those home-made arrows. ("Move." "I was here first." "Get out of the way." "No." Blip! Right in the eye.) "We can make swords, too."
Rusty almost looked the part of the savage, being shirtless, his home-made haircut a sort of burr, each hair standing out and not comb-able. His heavily freckled face with the blue eyes had already absorbed much sun in a young lifetime. He struck a pose before hurling away the spear. In the instant that he went after it we were summoned to the car. Sadie held the door for us. "We're coming back tonight."
* * * * * * * * * * *
I watched my step-father build and maintain the fires beneath a series of galvanized tubs each Saturday, using the heated water in a second-hand wringer washer, taking the back straining loads away from Sadie, she heavy with child. We rode the Dodge to the rail yards where blocks of ice were being fed by conveyor belt into the box cars. The errant chunks that fell on the rocks by the tracks were left to melt, all but the ones Melvin retrieved; these found temporary haven in the home ice box. He built a cage with a light bulb inside it to keep the baby chicks he bought cozy and warm. All in all, Marvin appeared to make the right moves, yet we feared him, we Wilson boys.
It was a conviction seemingly without teeth. I don't recall him eating his fill before allowing the rest of the family to sit down; that's something I only heard of fifty years later. For myself there are no memories of a man cruel and petty up to this point. I knew only that I dreaded being the object of his attention. He would roll in, the Dodge?'s wood-spoke wheels slowing to begin an optical reverse spin until it came to rest in a now customary spot. I made it a point to be near enough to witness the spin, one of the genuine pleasures of my day. Then I would run off, hoping with all my might he would not stand near the house and whistle for us to come running.
Marvin was no mere field hand. He had been many things in his life, including miner and carpenter; now he cooked for the Bright Spot Bar and Grill. Solicitous to a fault in these early days, he seemed genuinely proud of his family and it showed in the efforts he made. Little time was lost in the construction of a washhouse, clothesline poles and a fenced chicken shed. Finally, beginning with the batter boards, he built some foundation forms in preparation of erecting a real house. Sadie constantly beamed, in love with her new life. She believed in Marvin, certain he would fulfill all of their dreams.
Near the site of the ongoing construction there always lay piles of wood, with rusty nails straining to grab the feet of careless children. We often sprawled on the ground with boards attached to our flesh, pulling them away and going off to soak our bloody wounds in a kitchen pot of kerosene. It was a fact of life associated with Marvin and the Future Riding on His Efforts.
He rented a concrete mixer, fed it sand, stone and cement and poured the beams single-handed, preparing to lay down joists and a wooden sub floor. One day he stood in triumph atop the deck, joined by Rusty, who in turn summoned Pete and myself to partake the celebration. I came to the circle, my bouncy ball in hand. Smiling, feeling good for us all, I bounced the ball and caught it. Melvin angrily scooped it away and threw in the same motion. His eyes frightened me. "You always find a way to get on somebody's nerves."
Magic moment over, I wandered dejectedly into the neighboring property.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Now, the property to which I refer had a natural playground aspect to it. For no particular reason I could be aware of, a pit had been eaten in the dirt, very large and bowl-like, with a meandering entry of a steeply angled cut in the wall. We kept a few toy cars on-site and sticks to construct little buildings. We lived in the out-of-doors, from waking until dusk, which was dinner time, and then returned to play until bedtime. There was no interacting with adults in the form of gatherings and conversations, no bedtime stories, no hugs, no tenderness. When Pete and I would scratch roads to connect our little structures, then "drive" the autos to their "homes," the game would abruptly end or else begin over. Repeatedly our imaginary selves had no concept of what families did or ought to do. The stick homes were as vacuous as our own lives.
We came to this pit daily, Pete and I, and we looked out at new houses going up all about the neighborhood. At the corner this side of the cotton seed processing plant, a stucco job went up in a hurry. We were startled at how quickly a family began living in it. That they had a five year old child went un-noticed. And then one day we looked up at the rim of the pit to see him coming in to play.
I stared at the boy in some consternation, wishing I did not have to make contact with him. I had never been on common ground with any child apart from the immediate family and had no idea what to do. My brother had no such reservation. "Hello, I'm Pete."
"I'm Calvin."
Grateful Pete had broken the ice, I met Calvin halfway. "I'm Mitchell."
We played cars about a half hour and then our new friend's mother came across the vacant ground to make acquaintance with Sadie. Her name was Gita Gerber, tall, skinny and somewhat buck-toothed. Between Gita and the other new move-ins, Sadie had at last a circle of friends. She was granted by providence her other greatest wish shortly after, with the birth of a daughter, Sadie, whom Marvin nicknamed Ang-y. "Angy" was transformed by Sadie to Angel, the name that stuck with her throughout life. I became best friends with Calvin by fiat - Our ages were just one month apart and we both knew no one else.
As our golden summer progressed. I thought that life would be always about glorious long days spent playing in a yard now smooth, with every sticker plant trampled out. It would be about Calvin and I, with Pete following us around. One day Sadie taught me to print my name and delegated to Rusty the task of teaching me the art of shoe-tying. Clueless, I mastered the lessons and went out to reclaim the yard. To my surprise a few mornings later, Sadie woke me out of a sound sleep and helped me into brand new clothing. After a breakfast of warm oatmeal it suddenly dawned on me. I had been drafted.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Marvin and Rusty were also getting prepared. All too quickly they hustled me out of the house and after a dismayingly short drive walked me into the school corridor. Rusty ran off to find his class while Marvin held a discussion with Miss Jeffries, the teacher. "Go in and sit down," he urged, and I did.
After a few minutes Miss Jeffries shut the door behind her. They went home and left me! It was the final straw. I burst out bawling. For hours I cried, so wrapped in my mysery I had no knowledge of the activity of the class. Once, the boy in front turned around with an angry voice. "I'll stab you with this pencil."
Grief outweighed fear of a stabbing and the waterworks continued. We were dismissed at twelve noon, to make way for the afternoon students. As I followed the traffic on the oleander lined sidewalk, not knowing what to do next, I glimpsed a familiar figure of a boy just as he ducked behind some branches. "Ha!" Rusty cried, leaping out at me.
Unamused, I let him walk me home, where I joined up with Calvin. Calvin, having missed the call by a single month, had another entire year to play in the sun. Our long afternoons were quiet, with he talking and me listening. His parents actually conversed with him, so he had an enormous store of knowledge to draw from, whereas I had nothing. On one occasion he confided, "My Dad said that when a dog gets on your leg he's ******* you."
That vile word shocked me like a glass of ice water to the face. The one comparable moment had come a few months earlier when I walked up to a brand new boy playing in his yard. "Hi."
This kid was a lout. After a short exchange he told me with a grin, "I wish you was dead."
I was horrified that a person wished death on me. What kind of guy is it to invoke total annihilation? I turned on my heel, crossing him off any list of acquaintances.
It began to grate that Calvin made long statements about things that meant nothing to me, in words that passed my ears like flurries of autumn leaves. In school I remained a loner. Though not autistic, I had nothing to say. If I spoke ten whole sentences to anyone during the nine months leading to vacation I don't recall a one. I only mouthed the words to Good Morning Teacher and The Pledge of Allegiance. In a class of thirty, I was never singled out to be spoken to. Recess was organized games; Red Rover, Dodge Ball, Go In And Out the Windows and The Farmer in the Dell. No language required there.
I became rather fond of Miss Jeffries, a spinster lady of perhaps seventy. She spoke kindly and smiled frequently. It was pleasant and fun to sit coloring or watching the still-frame movies she showed of Disney's tales of Brer Rabbit. "At the beep, change the picture."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There was a cow pasture on the way to Calwa proper on the right and a residential neighborhood on the left. I walked the sidewalks that grazed the people's property, ambling beneath the limbs of sycamores and oaks. Acorns the size of Brazil nuts and larger fell along the way, becoming prized objects by children. Once in our possession they became useless and were quickly discarded. At the final house on the journey I often passed Victor, a child of three or perhaps four, paying him little to no mind as I crossed the intersection to the drug store and crossed again to the school property. One morning Victor was struggling mightily against being tethered to a tree. At the corner, angled that passers-by from both directions might read it, a sign displayed a message:
VICTOR HAS BEEN A BAD BOY
I wondered at a mother that would tie her child to a tree, questioned whether she could get in trouble over it. At any rate, he was safe and in the shade.
The summer vacation went quietly enough at its inception. Marvin got a few walls standing, sided first where they lay. I learned in later years that for a man to up a wall all alone like that was a tremendous feat. Sadie warned us to shun the castor beans she had planted, as they were poisonous. She followed Angel about with a Brownie Hawkeye camera, photographing every move. Already she carried her sixth little one. Jasper played mostly indoors, but he and Pete sometimes palled about while Calvin and I pissed away the sunshiny days. My irritation that my friend spoke authoritatively on a raft of subjects, while I knew nothing, finally peaked. As he explained to Rusty the wherefores of something, in words I did not even follow, I intervened. "No it isn't."
Calvin flashed an angry look before returning to the conversation. Ah, so. Having learned that I too could be consequential by mouthing these three simple words, I repeated them the following day. "A-a-a-a-a r-r-rgh!"
It was obvious neither one of us had been in any fights, for Calvin foolishly began wind-milling his arms and I in turn started a windmill of my own. He came to me like wheat to the scythe. I slapped the hapless kid until he gave up and ran crying to his mama.
About a week and a half later, same scenario. Calvin said a couple dozen words; I said, "No it isn't."
I wind-milled his head until he split for home.
At the end of these spats we always remained pals, so I believed. I genuinely liked this boy, despite the violence of his temper. After the third rematch I didn't see him for almost a week. I attributed it to the fact we both now were in school. Wrong. Coming home one day, as I passed the Gerber house, Calvin came around the corner and approached me. I greeted him with a friendly smile. Without preamble he pummeled my belly with both fists. His parents had taken his losses to heart and taught him to go for the jugular. Too surprised by the sour turn of events to react, I started to cry, though just for a second. Calvin wisely transposed himself back to the corner, where I saw his mama hug him and lead him away. There would be no opportunity to make up and repair the friendship or else merely to kick his ass, for his mama kept Calvin hid out permanently. And I was not hurt by the pounding, just the betrayal and the treachery.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
By this time the lot with the pit in it had been sold and a house with a fence around it stood on the land. Ditto the strip on the other side. Mason Street became paved, all in a day. The oily surface burned our feet and had us hip-hopping to cross over. Sadie disappeared for three days, to return from the charity hospital with her second daughter, whom she called Laura, after the popular song. My mom was to have a child each year, until they totaled a dozen. Not that she wanted to have that many; she requested a surgery to prevent further pregnancies, but the charity hospital balked. After the final birth, they changed their minds and it could be done after all. Now it was Sadie's turn to refuse. "You're too late."
I noticed that overnight Marvin had acquired the largest gut this side of Orson Wells. A visiting neighbor asked how he could function around it. Without apparent embarrassment he wrapped the swollen appendage in his arms. "You get used to it."
Sadie told me years later that Marvin had been well liked up to that point. Now, the neighbors had no use for him. As he drank more, progress on the new house became sporadic and finally ceased. He was hovering at the brink of failure.
His attention became focused on Angel, whose two dolls annoyed him, destroying the first while she slept. The second wound up on top of the house. We had long gotten used to packing the old Dodge and toodling off to the Motor-Inn Theater to watch outdoor movies. Often on the trip over we listened to Suspense on the radio, losing transmission each time we neared any power lines. The excursions began to trickle off. Marvin broke my heart by trading the Dodge for a shiny blue Chrysler, a piece of crap that broke down anytime he ventured to drive it. Symptomatic of the times, Sadie's arm got caught in the wringer, pulling up the length of her forearm before she hit the emergency release.
A new chapter for Pete and myself opened when Rusty obtained permission to take us along on his famous hikes. Going away from Calwa, the main road quickly made a sharp turn and then paralleled the train tracks. For starters we began these excursions playing with the hand cars at the switch yard. For some reason, nobody ever came around to run us off. Some industrial tanks, with ponds of black sludge around them came next. We got dangerously familiar with that ugly mess. Then into the trees and finally to a fenced encampment, where a series of cabins sat in quiet isolation. We approached a wooden stairway that stepped up and over the wooden pickets. Anything that went in and out of there had to go over that stair. I was only allowed into the camp once or twice, then quickly shooed off, but Rusty was special. As he grew older he became blood brother to one Houston C----, a classmate and resident of the Pima camp. My brother spent whole weekends as a guest. During his stays he joined in the partying and dancing, waking up one morning in bed with one of the girls. Her brother gouged Rusty's arm with a beer opener in retaliation. Sometimes coming home we went by a truck garden and snatched a few veggies to chew on.
One day it all ended. Not one word of discussion had reached my ears, yet it had been decided. We gave up our home to live with Marvin's mother in Campbell. I watched in sadness the loading of the trailer, not wanting to leave the first real home I had ever known. We were going back to our nomadic ways, though I had no insight that told me so. But over fifty years later, I still pine for my little home and the careless days of summer there.

I'll be back to check this out later. Looks good. -rjb-

I have revised this piece and decided it goes here.




Long Shadows

Most of Grandpa's hair had been trampled out by the ages. What was left huddled in nervous fringes about the ears and neck. This I noted anew that sultry July evening, when the shadows were lengthening and I and my wife entered the Three Rivers nursing home. We discovered him in a wheelchair, aimlessly poking about the room. His chair cut a corner and caught one of two beds, dragging it more centrally on the floor.
He rolled into a corner, bumping the walls, backing off and smacking them again. Observing the half dozen mini-crashes that followed, I fancied him a voyager, piloting a wooden craft through stormy straights, fighting to break into open waters. The metal frame vibrated with the old man's energy, denoting a perfect symbiosis of flesh and machinery. There was ample time to observe and make mental notes, for Grandpa seemed totally unaware we had come in for a visit. I became so focused on the saga unfolding before me that I unintentionally snubbed my step-grandma, a passenger on the bed that traveled. Grandma, who could not sit up on her own, employed a bank of pillows to elevate her head enough to see about the room. She had the wit to summon the would-be Odysseus back from the sea of imagining by calling his name.
"Johnny."
On the third try, he wheeled around and confronted me. It was a reunion seventeen years in the making. I drank in the bald pate that wrinkled into a sun-ravaged brow, scant eyebrows, prominent Dutch nose hanging like a decayed monument over a mouth drawn in by shriveled tissues, wrapped on toothless gums. His ears were huge, because all the rest of him had shrunk. Grandpa gazed up from his seat with eyes wider than an owl's. They made great red circles, with dark, dried-out balls at the center. I detected not a glimmer in those orbs, no hint of recognition. He turned to Grandma for help.
"Clara, who is this?"
"It's one of Sadie's boys."
"I'm Mitchell."
Grandpa was bewildered. His attention fluctuated between me and Grandma, in the end tossing the burden of it back at Grandma..
"Who is this, Clara?"
"He's one of Sadie's boys."
"Is this someone you knew before you met me?"
"No; he's one of Sadie's boys."
The conversation limped in this vane for several minutes. At last, on determining that he was not going to recognize me, I told my grandparents I had to go, but that we would return the following day. To my wife, Katy, these two were strangers. Through the whole encounter, she stood silently by the door. She now preceded me into the hallway. I bent over Grandma?'s bed.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
Her eyes were closing as I passed through the door. With one last glimpse at the old man, who still looked about in utter confusion, I pulled the white slab shut and walked away. Had I not been at a loss how to cope with it, I would right then have completed my mission, which was far more complex than a simple visit. Next time, I intended to pursue it to a conclusion.
We drove the brick-oven hot streets to my Aunt Mary and Uncle Andy's decaying trailer home, where we spent the night. Early enough, we prepared for the grueling ride to Houston, with first a quick looking in on Grandma and Grandpa. Expecting a repeat of yesterday's encounter, we pulled into the parking lot and approached the main entrance. One of the residents, a lanky, grizzled old boy, who reminded me somewhat of Uncle Andy, had come into the sunlight and stepped out of his trousers. One of the attendants flew down the steps, frantic to dissuade him. We were recognized and smiled at as we passed the desk. On both visits, the staff made us feel welcome and reassured as to the quality of professionalism within the organization. I turned the brass colored knob.
Grandpa sat squarely before me, staring hungrily at the center of the entranceway. It is my opinion he had planted himself there all morning, hoping I would keep my word to return. Over my greeting he piped an important announcement.
"I couldn't talk to you yesterday, but I can, now."
"Hey, I'm glad. Morning to you, Grandma."
"Where're the rest of the boys?" He sounded like the Grandpa of old, referring to my six brothers.
"Scattered everywhere."
His head swiveled to survey the room.
"It costs us five dollars a day to live here. We've been in this place three years. I don't have to stay, but she - I came to be with her."
Perhaps that was true, Grandpa, when you were new here. Now, you'd be somebody's burden.
He joined me in examining a collection of family photos thumb tacked to a wall. His crooked finger indicated a young person wearing a suit.
"That's me."
It was in fact his son, Robby, who looked just like him there.
Grandma took me by surprise. "Is Rusty dead?"
I regarded her tired features with mixed pity and tenderness. Poor Grandma. Flat on her back, she looked worn and resigned from the world and had been like that since I first knew her, at age fourteen. The several times I saw the woman on her feet she went shopping. What I'm saying is, the present situation was no great change of lifestyle.
"Rusty was killed in a wreck in 1969."
No need to dredge up the fact my brother got murdered.
"I thought he was dead."
But our focus remained on Grandpa, whose eyes had gotten lustrous. I contemplated his once powerful hands, grasping the rubber of the wheels, withered claws. When young, they wrested homes out of the raw materials of the building trade. I had been with him, once upon a time. He gave me my first job. For seven dollars per day I worked through eight and ten hour ordeals in the south Texas weather - miserable in cold, rainy winters, broiling in godless summers, often bedding on top of two-by-fours laid across saw horses. His spine straightened, as he recalled his days in the sun. He continued transforming and reverting to the Grandpa I knew, and he rhapsodized, building a monolog which we were content to harbor in chairs and merely listen to. Because he tended to mumble, I rarely understood much that he said. My voice was like his, and he was hard of hearing, so you can imagine the conversations we had.
"I built over a thousand houses." He grinned, looking at Katy and I as though we were a whole stadium-full of listeners. "That was enough, wasn't it?"
He focused on episodes and issues my brothers and I would remember. And then it started. Interlaced with the tales were barbed references to me. "Mitchell didn't like it …" It would seem he hadn't a clue which of my clan sat before him, freeing him to take potshots - and yet, a glimmer of recognition lurked, covertly, somewhere inside that pea brain of his. Else, why single me out, of all my brothers, and remind me of a whole lifetime of issues? In 1957, the merry old fart borrowed my mom's rent money, two days before due date, without coming back or ever mentioning it again. He formed a habit of blatantly keeping my wages as his own. Four times I worked for him; four times he kept whole paychecks.
The summer we operated out of Crystal City was when Grandpa crossed the line. Rusty and I, along with three Mexicans, were his crew, throwing together shell houses, laboring a full seven days for weeks on end. After the first couple of pay periods, we got increasingly short-changed. Manuel, a fellow carpenter, insinuated himself into our confidence, ferreting out our discontent. The gossipy asshole passed all information to Grandpa.
"I asked how he was going to pay all that money. He answered, 'I won't. I'll just say I charged it up to room and board.'"
Once, I strolled past their conversation, as Grandpa told Manuel, "Mitchell thinks he's number one. He ain't number nothin'." I truly believe he spoke without justification, yet I kept quiet. One reason, Rusty was the figurehead in my family. I kept my cool because he was so darned unshakable. No confrontations, no sulking, solely because of him. Rusty had been forced to grow up early, taking on the feeding of our entire family at the age of sixteen. I bided, roiling inside, smooth as a quiet pond on the outside. When big brother told me, "We're going home," I applauded and packed my bag, for it never seemed sweeter. In the old "Gray Ghost", Rusty's ?'52 Ford convertible, with radio blaring, we shuttled home.
After about a week, Grandpa made a pit-stop of his own, since Grandma lay at home while he pursued the trade. Then, wondering if Rusty or I were interested in coming back to Crystal City, he waltzed into the house, bubbling with good cheer. He effervesced across the room, finally foaming over to me. "Hmm," he grunted, grinning, tapping his feet at mine in a game called "I?'ll make him move." Angrily, I turned away, for, when he did not offer money, forgiveness got murdered..
"Well, if you want to be that way about it …"
At the moment, I did. From that juncture Grandpa severed the tie of grandfather to grandson with me, for the rest of his life undercutting me at each opportunity, never acknowledging my first wife and children, spreading malicious gossip. "Screw 'im," I figured. Our families drifted apart, not caring who lived, who died.
In the succeeding years, Rusty became involved with a woman engaged in a bitter divorce. Her husband ran them over with a ¾-ton pickup truck. Mom grieved herself to death over it and I eventually divorced, soon thereafter to marry Katy. Seventeen years beyond my mother's funeral, we found ourselves getting regaled by my grandpa, who was ninety-seven. I had a task to perform, just as soon as the old bastard quit talking, as, eventually, it had to end.
He wound to a close, then posed as we snapped a few photos.
"Grandpa," I said, standing over him …
He allowed me to hug him - hug a set of bones, really.They were the frame of a big human being, but the human being was slowly abandoning ship. I in that moment accomplished my mission. All the anger, hurt, humiliation and betrayal went down like a row of palm trees in a hurricane. My hatchet was buried.
"I love you, Grandpa."
He had not received such a hug in all his years, guaranteed.
"See you Christmas," I promised.
"Bring the reast of the boys," he said eagerly.
During the course of the visit he had seemed to drop thirty years. Now he was reluctant to turn back. We left him there, waiting for Christmas.
* * * * *
I never saw him again. He developed a painful condition which nearly cost him his life several times. Each time the doctors revived him, but could not stanch the pain. So then they let him die to be at peace. We visited Grandma one last time. She appeared to drift in and out of consciousness, not really able to respond to us. At one point she looked up and said to me, "You have a house. Over there?" She shut her eyes then and appeared to be sleeping. I kissed her cheek
"We're going to leave you now, Grandma. I just want you to know that we love you and we're happy we got to see you."

damn, edgar, that was a great story. Thanks for posting it. I'll try to come uo with a contribution.

BTW, a suggestion to everyone: a story like that, to be fully appreciated, needs to be read aloud. We lose a lot by just scanning the words in a book or on a computer screen. We lose the rhythm, the cadence.
Plus it is great fun to lie on the couch and be read to. -rjb-

Good.

Great reading, edgar...I haven't read the revised piece yet...be back later

I thank you both for taking time to comment.

Edgar, I've read every piece on this thread (that's a lot of reading for me). I didn't realize you were such a fantastic writer. What books have you published?

Edgar, my "good" was sort of dry. I didn't mean it as equivocal, but that I was pulled in, nothing jarred, yet the writing was rich.

No prob, ossobuco. I often give the same response when I really want it to mean a bit more.

Stuh
I am an amateur. I belong to a writer's site which does its own publishing (titles will soon be available on Amazon, I believe) and a few of my works will be in them.

the professionals are amateurs too

I am at work on a novel and collecting short stories for a book. I may never be well known, but I have fun anyway.

There are many great writers that never become well known.
Edgar, let us know when your works will be available at Amazon

Will do, colorbook.

Edgar
Way to go, Edgar!!!

BBB

Hi, BBB. Nice to hear from you.

Eh, back on my post... I didn't really want it to read a bit more... I was happy enough.

o

Well, whatever. All is well from the land of eb.

I just finished reading "Long Shadows"<smile>
A heartfelt description of family and memories…in a way, it reminded me of my own. Beautiful story!