About a year after my MaMa passed, my Granddaddy was coming to Albany, to visit my folks for the weekend . The night before, I dreamed about me and my MaMa. Like one of my summer visits. I suppose because I knew my Granddaddy was coming the next day, they were both on my mind.
My summers were spent in one of her guest bedrooms. It had a twin bed, a hope chest, nightstand, and a three-tiered glass shelf. She had these same glass shelves throughout her house. I guess it was the way of decorating all those years ago. All the shelves had knick knack pretties on them. Both spare bedrooms and both bathrooms had these glass shelves. In the bedroom, the bed was pushed almost against the wall..the glass shelves were centered on that wall, above the bed. This made it very difficult to make the bed without bumping your head on those shelves. I dreamed, me and my MaMa were making the bed together, and she got too close on her side, causing me to tell her to 'look out, MaMa, you are going to cut yourself'. That's it, that's the dream. Not such big stuff. Nothing exciting.
So that next day, Saturday, I'm at my folks' house, waiting on my Granddaddy to arrive for his visit. He comes in and he has a white bandage over his left eye. I asked him what in the world happened to his eye. He said the day before, he was in the bathroom, shaving and what not, and dropped his razor. He bent down to pick it up, came back up too fast and caught the corner of his face/eye on the corner of the bottom glass shelve. Said he liked to have never got it to stop bleeding. I absolutely could not breath. I asked him again, though I knew exactly what he had said, when he did it. He answered, again. And I just sat there staring at him. At his eye. My insides quivering with craziness. I never did tell him about the dream. Even to me, it sounded crazy.
I've already told you me and my Granddaddy were not very close. He loved me, I guessed all those years. You have to love your granddaughter, right? Just like when I got older, I had to love my Granddaddy, right? The comfort for me was always that my grandmother loved him. And I knew, if she loved him, deep down in there, there was a reason. And for me, that was enough. Although I would question it, and wonder about it, I tried not to think about the why's and how's of how they became one. For me, she was laughing sunshine, and he was a dark storm. He passed from this world, all of these emotions within me, still unresolved.
For about a year before my Daddy and his sisters had to place him in a nursing home, my Dad drove back and forth from Albany to Phenix City, two or three times a week. Making sure he was bathed, had clean clothes, food, cleaned his house and basically just took care of him the best he could from a distance. Because until he had the heart attack, my Granddaddy refused to leave his home.
A few months after he died, I dreamed the most awesome dream of my life. I dreamed I was his caretaker. I played the role my daddy had played for over a year. But some of the neighbors thought he was there alone and no one was taking care of him. Worried about him, they called the police. The police came, rang the door bell, I answered the door. I had been on the back deck sweeping off the pine straw. He told me the purpose of his visit. I assured him my Granddaddy was fine, I was taking care of him and that he was more than welcome to come in, take a look around. See for himself that the house was clean and he was fine. He took me up on my offer, came in, looked around and then asked to see my Granddaddy. He was still on the back deck, in his pajamas, it was too difficult some days to get him dressed. The policeman walked out on the deck, and then for a minute..everything else was a blur. I saw my Granddaddy take the cop's gun out of his side holster, the cop turned around and my Granddaddy shot him. I was screaming NO..and running all at the same time. When I got to the policeman, lying on the deck, it was obvious, he was gone. I got up, turned back around and my Granddaddy was holding the gun out for me to take it from him.. He smiled, then hugged me, and kept patting my back, rocking me back and forth. That's when I knew. He was still in this world just enough to know, that what the man had was a gun, and he thought that man was going to hurt me. He took it and shot him, to save me, protect me.
I woke up shaking and crying, and knowing, that all that time, all those years, he loved me, he just didn't know how to show it, until he had to, to save me. He would have always saved me, and I should have known it. Merry Christmas MaMa and Granddaddy, my Butterfly Angels, I love you both.
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