Grey[ing]

Your hand shivers as you say my name,

Im praying your just playing some strange twisted game,

You look tired, you close your eyes

They say to me softly in my ear ,”Child, say your goodbyes”

I lived with my grandparents long enough to realize that there were two ways I could go about living in peace. I ended up choosing quite a strange relationship with them which ranged from affection to just plain endurance and everything in between. They were both very active people who’d led very full lives. My grandfather was a decorated war veteran and my grandmother a retired school principal and a very active member of the senior citizens society. I could say that they lived their lives and I lived mine. We had our fights and there were times they would stay up with me while I studied. They didn’t have the most peaceful end, it’s a little sad and does tug sometimes at my heartstrings…

I wear my grandmothers ring on my hand all the time. It was her engagement ring. It somehow makes me feel connected to them in a way. And I realize its not just about the things they constantly tried so very hard to drill into me, much to me and my parents amusement, but it was the little things that often came back to me as I sat ruminating on idle days such as this one. They had just one plan in their youth. To work hard enough to educate both their children so as to see them better off than them. Our relatives don’t fail to constantly remind us, that they surely did. To have a dream is one thing. But to see it till its fruition is entirely another. Whatever their faults had been, they had come up the hard way. And though I rarely said it, I really respected them for that.

I pass the senior citizens park that they used to spend their time at everyday. Their friends still sit their chatting. I sometimes wonder what they talk about. The glorious days when the sun still shone upon the virgin this city once was? Of their days in the armed forces? The war? Or did they actually look at me and wonder about this unspoken chasm between us and them? When had their come an US and THEM? Were they equally surprised when their shoulders started to droop and their knees started to weaken? Did they secretly cringe whenever they were helped with simple activities? Clichéd and dramatic as it sounds, I am suddenly looking at them much more keenly than before. At the crinkling eyes and all the tales of folklore.