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CIRQUE desperation. This story helped me understand my grandpa, and myself. This is how I can tell it to you.
Wendy Uzzell
Waiting for Me to Follow
Cold air fills my lungs as I step on leaves covered with droplets of frozen rain cupped within their curling edges and littered across the forest floor. Frozen in their interrupted descent, held back from melding into earth moisture, they are individual for a time. One, plump and perfectly rounded, is surrounded with tension that keeps it immobile until the air cools it and it becomes hardened. Another is elongated and almost broken free. I wonder if it mourns the lost chance to become a rivulet. # Grandpa Lyman had a stroke one summer when he was in his sixties, before they knew how to minimize the damage. At first it wasn’t so bad. He could sit up in his hospital bed in Seattle, and speak clearly to me. It was decided by my mother that I would have the time to attend to him, to see him daily. The bus deposited me on the outskirts of the hospital parking lot. I remember the heat of the summer day and the noise of diesel engines belching as I walked across the barren surface, miserable in my ignorance of how to be a caregiver to one who had never seemed helpless. Because Grandpa’s frame was wiry I could help him sit up on the side of his bed. Then I would tuck a napkin under his chin, cut his meat into small pieces and spoon his meal to him. He had no use of his left arm and limited use of his right, but he could chew and swallow. His horseshoe fringe of white hair glinted in the window’s light and his blue eyes reassured me. I tried not to stare at his left hand as it cupped uselessly in his lap. He was always happy to see my awkward, bony, thirteen year old self and we giggled together the day I fed him gravy like it was soup. We joked about the ever present gelatin side dish, and I helped him drink his coffee. Sugar, no cream. I imagined that he would get better, and be my long striding Grandpa again, believing I could ignore the inevitable that I could not understand. # There are stories that I have heard, of the time Lyman and his small family lived far away in the Aleutian Islands in the 1930’s. They worked hard and were determined, but it was also equal parts hope and
May is when the waves and storms are as easy as they will ever be in the Aleutians. Shaking off the shackles of winter weather Lyman is venturing out from sheltered waters, and seeking opportunity. With practiced moves he eases off the skiff’s throttle as he enters the bay of the island. He is amazed at the tonnage of rock spread across the sweep of beach and tall cliffs rearing upwards further than he can crane his neck to see. Spreading a hundred yards from one side to the other, the sandless beach is filled with boulders, all of a size and offering treacherous footing. Larger slabs intrude randomly, offering their own island of stability. There is no greenery on the shore, not even a tussock of grass. The skiff pushes through the water into the sheltered area. The sky hasn’t changed; it remains the gunmetal gray of threatening rain. He looks up at the boulder beach and a narrow rift promising a path to the interior of the island. It isn’t a valley with gentle slopes. All it can be called is a cut, a steep slice into the cliffs stretching hundreds of feet up, the v-shaped surface covered with rough rock. Seismic quaking has carved out broken bedrock, and the force of rain deluges turned waterfall has pushed them down to litter the base. High above the salty rime of wave splash and barely holding on at the edges, wind gnarled brush begins a tentative possession in the dark volcanic dust and grit. Lyman reaches back and switches off the fuel and steps into the shallows. He winces as the cold water soaks his woolen trousers to the knees. Splashing through the uneven footing he quickly pulls his skiff above the high water mark. He looks around in awe of what nature has provided, both enticement and barrier. # In sixth grade I began to notice the pervading grayness of Seattle, the rain, the concrete of the cityscape. Our house never had a blade of planted grass, only large raised planter boxes filled with tomatoes and flowers. The ground next to the flower boxes was neglected, a scraggly patch of weeds, while the rest of the property was so steep that rugged Scotch Broom was planted and left to run wild. We children were told to go down the paved hillside to a playground, one square block of ball field, swings and clubhouse, and only five large oak trees. It is difficult to move around the city without being on concrete. There were concrete stairs to reach