Two weeks following the funeral, I negotiated the dusty, gravel roads of Platte County and inhaled the wild, plum blossoms lining the ditches. The weed-filled lane mocked the once, well-tended farmyard. The weather-beaten barn leaned to one side while its doors dangled on their hinges. Once surrounded by teeming flower beds smiling in rainbow hues, my grandmother’s farmhouse slumped with embarrassment. I believed that eons of time would not heal my wounds.
The clumsy cardboard box I carried fought against my leg and attempted to knock me off my feet symbolizing the struggle I would face on the other side of the door. The waiting hassle added to the hollowness I harbored. My heart still suffered from sorrow. But my sadness did not match the simmering resentment now gripping my soul. My grandmother had been my closest friend and confidante. Her death would create a vast void in my life.
Inside, my mother, aunt, and two quarreling cousins pilfered through my grandma’s life and squabbled about items they might want. My temper simmered, ‘They didn’t know Grandma, not deep in their souls.’ I gritted my teeth as I watched my mother search for trivial mementos or saved birthday cards and then carelessly shove them into a black garbage bag finally ridding her life of her mother-in-law’s presence.
The hair on my neck bristled each time a cousin picked up an item and wagered its value – precious remnants of my grandma’s life once cradled in her hands and cherished with her heart. I smirked when I envisioned my cousins’ disappointment when they wouldn’t find a rare brooch, plate, or teapot.
“Hey, you,” my mother growled, “get a box and clean out the upstairs.” She wiped sweat from her brow as she ransacked a coat closet. My mother narrowed her eyes, “And stop frowning.”
I bit my tongue afraid my angry words might mutilate the trespassers. Seizing the cardboard boxes, I stomped up the staircase, pushed through the lodged storage room door, and nearly landed on a pile of Christmas wrapping paper. Time stopped as my mind penetrated the past. Bits of dust flickered and floated like the first, winter snow. One hundred years earlier, the small one-windowed space served as a water closest arrayed with porcelain pitchers and the necessary chamber pot. Now silenced, the chamber protected forgotten memories. My shaking hand raised the discolored oilcloth window shade and glimpsed at a graveyard of picture frames and wicker sewing baskets.
“Yes,” I closed my eyes and drank in another deep breath of memories, “this is how Grandma’s storeroom smelled.”
Pushing aside a plastic tub of unwanted flower vases, I spied a box of embroidered pillowcases. Now yellowed, their stale odor of dried starch and mothballs filled my nose while my fingertips stroked the forgotten pressed linens. With our heads together, my grandma and I spent winter days basking in the sunshine from the kitchen windows and embroidered pillowcases and tea towels.
“Grandma, can you still see those little stitches?” I would tease.
Arthritic fingers pulled the kaleidoscopic threads through the white cotton and created a garden scene. “A lost art,” my grandmother sighed and swayed her head of silver hair. “Learning to embroider supplied me with my seamstress skills.”
My mind returned to my task as I glanced along the wall and spied two cedar blocks hanging from a bent nail. I smiled as I remembered watching when Grandma had hammered into the plastered wall and created a spider web of cracks reaching out in all directions. When I pushed aside a pile of sewing patterns, there came a sense that my hand had bridged into the past. My breath wheezed, and my hands trembled with a sudden sense of anticipation.
There, under a pile of newspapers, rested a stack of cherished books from my childhood. With gentle hands, I cradled each lost friend and pressed them to my breast. “I never dreamed I’d find you,” my quivering voice whispered into the silence while my eyes welled with unexpected tears.
When I opened the cover of Every Child’s Story Book, the arid and fragile pages disintegrated. Cupped hands captured the falling pages of magical words which had captivated my childhood’s imagination, and my fingertips caressed the browned pages smelling like vanilla coffee and savored the beguiling aroma of vintage books. The present time retreated to my mind’s secret corner, and now I was no longer amid the musty smell of the dust-filled storeroom.
Perched on the arm of Grandma’s oak rocker, my arm wrapped tight around her neck while my small body snuggled so close that we fused into one reader. Grandma’s extended leg pushed against the wood floor with a rocking motion which matched her rhythmic voice.
Traveling far away to the grimy city of London, we two were transported on the mesmerizing words. When Black Beauty is misused and harmed, we shed tears over Beauty’s cruel life of pulling cabs through the London streets. After Black Beauty was found and retired to the green pastures of the horse’s youth, my grandmother and I cheered. Next, they flew off to the land of dikes and spinning windmills. In the story, “Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates,” we soulmates suffered with the Brinker family and then applauded as Gretel wins the girls’ race and receives the grand prize.
From my armchair pinnacle as a five-year-old, I absorbed the magical words and imagined the characters’ faces and actions. Grandma’s intonations made me dream that I was part of the action. My grandmother would ask, “What do you think will happen next?”
“More, Grandma, one more story.” My small hands wrapped around my grandmother’s cheeks.
“Just for you, but don’t tell anyone that you’re my favorite.” My grandmother turned the pages of the classic stories of “Pinocchio” or “The Little Brown Hen” and led her granddaughter through the literary world of good and bad choices.
Now in my mind, I saw Grandmother’s blue eyes flash while her easy laughter echoed in my ears. “I have traveled to so many countries and had thrilling adventures. But not on a boat,” she’d grin, “no, a book carried me.” Then holding up one finger, my grandmother would wink, “You can go anywhere in a book.”
After I outgrew the rocking chair, my passion for the written word grew. Bobbsey Twins books and then Nancy Drew mysteries became annual birthday gifts. Hidden under heavy quilts and aided by a flashlight, I read late into the night. During family dinners at my grandma’s house, I sneaked up the stairs and into the storeroom. Scaling the homemade shelves, my fingers clung to the splintery wood while I foraged under piano sheet music and boxes of jigsaw puzzles.
There I discovered the riches of Jack London’s world as my magic carpet carried Jack and me to the land of gold, snow, and death. Now as I gathered up the copies of The Call of the Wild and White Fang, I wondered if the stories would be the same when read through my adult eyes.
A grin appeared when I remembered the oppressive summer days when the storeroom became a sauna. My youthful mind imagined the Arizona desert and the Texas grasslands while I joined the trail herds and bounty hunters in Zane Grey’s western novels. Riding through the American west with good-looking heroes, black-hatted villains, I found a forsaken love or two. The then young girl soon realized Gunsmoke and Sheriff Matt Dillion’s version of the old west paled in comparison to Grey’s cowboy sagas.
Not wanting to share my reading time or be interrupted, I donned extra sweaters during the cold winters and retreated to the unheated, upstairs room. The Nebraska winter winds whistled through the cracks of the single-paned window. My teeth chattered, and I blew hot breaths on my frozen fingers while I consumed stacks of 1940s vintage Popular Detective magazines. But when murdered victims started sneaking into my dreams, I abandoned the noir mysteries for other genres.
Now thirty years later, my fingers gripped the dusty planks one more time and stepped onto the lower shelf. I peeked over the top board and stretched my arm into the darkness. There, the Queen of Mystery waited for discovery. Once again, Agatha Christie and I met face-to-face, and my mind imagined the English author’s nod and quiet smile as Agatha greeted me. Life is only one of the Great Illusions. Hercule Poirot was of course groomed his moustache, and Miss Marple, never a bumbling old lady, joined the reunion.
As a twelve-year-old, I had devoured the parched covers of the frayed Christie paperbacks like ice cream. Struggling with Miss Marple’s English terms and Poirot’s love of enigmatic language, a pocket dictionary sat by my side. Memorizing Christie’s strategies for uncovering clues and flushing out the villains, I still employed Poirot’s techniques when reading or watching a murder mystery.
With a sigh, my focus returned to the storage room and I finished my task gathering up the faded wrapping paper and broken picture frames. I boxed up the patterns and embroidery threads to donate later. After I carried the bags and boxes down the stairs and to the garbage, I returned to my old friends. With care, I lifted each Jack London novel and Agatha Christie mystery and stacked them next to the Zane Grey paperbacks. Gently, I placed the fragile Pitter Patter Book and Every Child’s Story books into a shopping bag that I found hanging on a dress hook. After filling a cardboard box with the rediscovered books, I realized that the beloved friends had warmed my heart and helped me relinquish the last of my grief. My mother, aunt, and two cousins could engage in combat below, I would cling to the heirlooms which bonded my grandmother with my grieving inner child. When I turned for one last scan of the room, a tap, warm and gentle, touched my shoulder. Emitting a slight scream, I spun around. No human stood nearby. A swift shudder ran up my spine, but then my soul finally perceived what my eyes couldn’t. Grandma’s presence dwelled in each of these books. Her appreciation of literature and music was my legacy — a bequest dearer than any material collectible. In the future when I share this hunger and desire for the written word to my children and grandchildren, Grandma’s endowment will live on. I clasped the bag of books to my heart and whispered into the stuffy room, “Thank you, Grandma. I will cherish my time with you, then, now, and forever.” Returning down the stairs, my cousins, surrounded by piles of glassware, questioned. “Don’t you want any of these dishes?” “No, I’m fine.” I smirked as my mother and aunt fussed over my grandmother’s physical possessions. The brown-paged books and classic novels were my inheritance. I needed no baubles or trinkets; Grandma’s heart resided in my bag. My mother narrowed her eyes and sneered. “What’s in the sack?” “Books, just paperbacks and hard cover.” My smile was slim as I shrugged my shoulders. To satisfy their curiosity, my two cousins rushed close and peered into the paper bag. “They smell musty. You can have them.” They waved their hands and backed off.
My mother, a non-reader, rolled her eyes. “Those old books are such a waste of time.” As I waved farewell to my grandmother’s house, no heavy grief lingered in my heart. This granddaughter carried cherished memories within her psyche — reflections of an intimate connection to another being’s soul. My grandmother had bequeathed the quintessential gift. My relationship with this intelligent woman and the written word would carry me through future, tough times. Years before, Grandma had proclaimed, “I have traveled to so many countries and had thrilling adventures.” Like my mentor, I don’t take a boat, a plane, or a car. I fly on the dog-eared pages of a favored book and soar upon a magic carpet of threads created with the hues of kinship, love of words, and cherished affection woven into the tapestry of my life. The faded covers and brown pages of the rediscovered books sit on the shelves next to my writing desk. Each time I need comfort or inspiration, my fingers reach out and touch another time and a renewed perception. This fortunate granddaughter will forever be sustained and strengthened through the loving bonds with my grandmother and the power of the written word.