My Grandpa - My Haven

Childhood can be a marvelous time in life, and it can also be a place of secret misery – horrors untold, real and imagined.  A lifetime of reticence and fear can spring from memories of stolen years where joy should have been the center.    And yet, in the midst there can be havens of contentment and peace.  My grandfather was such a place for me.

A large, robust man, my grandfather lived on a farm in a poor rural area in Kansas.  His farm, one of the more prosperous, had no running water on the property.  A well with a hand-pump on the screened porch provided the water for drinking, cooking, and bathing.  Cows, horses, chickens, and one old dog were the live-stock tended and cared for by both my grandfather and grandmother during the years I knew them on the farm.

My grandmother was a wonderful woman always working and cooking to take care of the needs of the family members who came to visit.  But it was my grandfather with his quiet strength – my "Grandpa" - to whom I turned for comfort.  Did he know he was my center?  Probably not.  He sat in his chair and welcomed me to his lap where I gladly nestled, fingering the metal fittings of his overall straps.  I don't remember any of his words to me only the feeling of peace and safety.  He was my haven when I felt like the rest of the world was against me.  It's sad a young child can have such a need because of a "secret."

As I sat there on his lap, I imagined how life might be if I lived on the farm.  I couldn't take my eyes off the winding blue rivers in the back of his hand and wondered if I traced my finger across them could I somehow conjure up the places he had been, and recreate my life to be with him on future journeys.

Running free in pastures, riding the safe old horse who knew the way home even if I didn't – times of glad escape I remember.  Holding onto my Grandpa's wide waist behind him on his horse as we rounded up the cattle; I couldn't see where we were going, but it did not matter.  I knew my Grandpa would not lead us astray; he would never betray my trust and faith.  And he never did.

When I was eight, he got sick with cancer and shortly thereafter died peacefully in our house in the city.  It was a more than the death of a person to me; it was loss of a place where I could feel loved and be free.  Free to be me.  Even years later, tears come to my eyes when I think of all the years I missed having him as a part of my life.  I still miss my grandpa; and to this day, I have never found anything to replace what I had there on his lap.