I always loved sitting and listening to Grandma Emma talk about her life with Grandpa. The stories she told of how they met when she was running a station for the Pony Express and he was a local lawman give me chills even if I have heard them dozens of times over. Grandpa was a brave man; there was no doubt about that.
My mom says that Grandma was different after Grandpa died. Oh, she was still very independent and determined to have things her way but Mom said she’d lost a little of the spark she used to have when Grandpa was alive.
Mom said she missed the way Grandma’s eyes would light up when Grandpa would come in from work or how they would just sit and rock in their identical rocking chairs on the porch after he retired. Daddy said he’d never believed he’d ever see Grandpa sitting and rocking the hours away but, if anyone could get him to do it, it would be Grandma.
Sometimes, Daddy said, they would talk while they rocked, but most of the time they just held each other’s hand and smiled as they watched their children play in the yard.
After Grandpa died they moved one of the rocking chairs into Grandma’s bedroom. My mom and dad and later me and my sister moved in with her to help her keep the house and make sure she ate and stuff.
Neither my parents nor my aunt would ever talk about the day that Grandpa died. I heard a couple of the women down at the church saying Grandma had been there when it happened. They said she’d just held his hand until the end and that it was almost like she knew he was already gone before he breathed his last. And they whispered about how she started acting strange after that.
I never did figure out what they meant by “strange.” To me she just seemed lonely. Every once in a while Grandma would just go into the bedroom and close the door. I could hear the sound of the rocking chair moving back and forth. Sometimes I could hear her saying something out loud but I just figured she was praying like she did most nights. But I guess I never did really know and sometimes I could almost swear I heard another voice coming from the room. Mom always told me it was my imagination since there was no one in the room but Grandma. Grandma—and Grandpa’s rocking chair.
Sure there were times when she’d do strange things. Like the time she told me not to go play in the barn on Saturday. It was only Monday and she never said why she wanted me to stay away. Funny thing was though, that very Saturday that old barn caught fire and burned to the ground. If I’d been playing in the hayloft like I usually did, I probably wouldn’t have made it out since the fire moved really fast and the only door would have been blocked long before I could have gotten down.
Another time she warned my Uncle Jack not to go into town. He told her he wouldn’t but ended up going anyway, because he had some errands to run. Grandma was waiting for us when we came home to get her to take her to the hospital where they’d taken Uncle Jack after his accident.
When my Aunt Julia got sick, a lot of people thought she wasn’t going to make it out of the hospital. She was really sick and everyone but Grandma figured we’d be burying her before summer. But Grandma seemed to know better. A year later, Grandma up and decided one day to go over to spend the night with my aunt. She made Daddy take her in the middle of a snowstorm. That night Aunt Julia died in her sleep.
It seemed like every time something happened to one of us, Grandma was always prepared—like the time she made me wear my good suit to the school awards ceremony. I didn’t figure I’d win anything. I’m glad I didn’t go in my dungarees because I won a really special award and got to have my picture taken with the mayor. Grandma had that picture framed. She put it on her nightstand right next to the one of Grandpa.
The day Grandma died, it was just me, my little sister and her in the house. Mom and Daddy had gone somewhere and Uncle Jack was out in the fields. She told me she was going to go lie down for a while since she wasn’t feeling well. It wasn’t more than an hour later that she called me into her room and told me to send my sister to run get Uncle Jack.
I ran to the living room and told my sister to run out to the field Uncle Jack was working in and tell him Grandma needed him right away. Grandma was laying on her bed but she raised up and smiled at me when I came back in. She told me then how I was the spitting image of Grandpa and that she knew I would grow up to be the fine kind of man he had been.
I wasn’t going to be anything special, I declared. I couldn’t even pass English at school. There was no way I would ever be as important and special as everyone had told me my Grandpa was.
She told me that I would do fine in English and anything else I set my mind to. She told me a lot of things about my future that day, things she couldn’t possibly know.
Finally I had to ask her how she could possibly know all of this. She smiled softly and kissed me on the cheek. As my uncle skidded into the room, Grandma whispered something in my ear. Then she closed her eyes and was gone.
Later, Uncle Jack asked me what she had said to me. “She said she’d been spending time talking to Grandpa,” I told him. “And he told her it was time to be together again.”
I didn’t tell him about the figure I saw in the rocking chair that day or the way the chair had started moving all on its own. I didn’t figure he’d believe me.
~~~~
Grandma
Written by unknown
Sung by The Statler Brothers on their album Short Stories
The day Granddaddy died, she was there by his side
And she held to his hand, till the end
And just before his final breath, the one that took him into death
A smile and tear showed through, like she already knew
And in a voice so low and mild
She stayed and talked a while
Like a friend home from a long, long trip
Like a mother to a child
Whenever Grandma got blue, like only widows do
She'd go to their bedroom, and close the door
And for years we thought she prayed, by the bed where he had layed
But we only could assume, what went on in Grandma's room
And in a voice so low and mild
She stayed and talked a while
Like a friend home from a long, long trip
Like a mother to a child
(Spoken)
She knew a week before the old barn burned down
And she knew before we told her, when Jack had that wreck in town
And the night before Aunt Julia passed away, she went over there and stayed
And I finally asked her just how she could know all this
And she just patted my hand and gave me a kiss
And in a voice so low and mild
She said I talked with Jim a while
Like a friend home from a long, long trip
Like a mother to a child
Like a friend home from a long, long trip
Like a mother to a child
Grandma
Written by unknown
Sung by The Statler Brothers on their album Short Stories
The day Granddaddy died, she was there by his side
And she held to his hand, till the end
And just before his final breath, the one that took him into death
A smile and tear showed through, like she already knew
And in a voice so low and mild
She stayed and talked a while
Like a friend home from a long, long trip
Like a mother to a child
Whenever Grandma got blue, like only widows do
She'd go to their bedroom, and close the door
And for years we thought she prayed, by the bed where he had layed
But we only could assume, what went on in Grandma's room
And in a voice so low and mild
She stayed and talked a while
Like a friend home from a long, long trip
Like a mother to a child
(Spoken)
She knew a week before the old barn burned down
And she knew before we told her, when Jack had that wreck in town
And the night before Aunt Julia passed away, she went over there and stayed
And I finally asked her just how she could know all this
And she just patted my hand and gave me a kiss
And in a voice so low and mild
She said I talked with Jim a while
Like a friend home from a long, long trip
Like a mother to a child
Like a friend home from a long, long trip
Like a mother to a child