For the past five weeks or so, the thought of me returning to my grandparent's house has been constantly on my mind. I've had fervent thoughts of younger weekends spent in their back yard, climbing the trees my dad had climbed, walking the neighborhood to the now decrepit playground, and the Autumn walks in the botanical garden reserved solely for the males in the family, a Thanksgiving tradition I never quite got, still being only 13 at the last of these walks, ever. (However I still remember one of those particular walks, in which I found a 5 euro piece in a wishing well, and I took it out of sheer curiosity and intrigue, and on another occasion, my older cousins finding a rock that looked remarkably like one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's heads, but that was a reference far above me, I never cared for cartoons.)
And yet, I find it strange, just that I have had thoughts of returning to this place that I can no longer go. My grandparents on my father's side have been gone for about five years, now, and that house is past.
Why there was cheap imitation-wood siding on this, and all the other houses in this all Irish neighborhood? What was the use of the Buick parked in the garage? Never to be used, and sold instead of given to me as a present for having gotten my license, I guess that was perhaps one last "fuck you," from my uncles to their younger brother, my father... but I always wanted not to think that. And what of the pads on the old lawn furniture that never seemed to age, having reached their asymptote of fading and being left out on too many sunny and rainy days; Or the seven or eight whiffle ball bats - equally faded - what was their story? These were all mysteries to me, questions that I longed to have answered each time the family traveled there, but they never were.
What I could figure out, through my constant love of searching through memories left in bureaus and night closets, was that my grandfather loved Louis L'Amour novels (I found a ton when I rooted through his things, once), and that he golfed and worked for IBM, as well the fact that he was an advance scout in some regiment serving in Europe in World War II, and that he saved many lives, got wounded, then refused to accept his Purple Heart because the man in the bed next to him had gotten his testicles blown off, and that his sacrifice, getting shell blasted into his skull, when compared to the man next to him, was nothing. That man would never be able to have children, and I never told my grandfather this, but I thought he was the most honest man I had known, I looked up to him, I really did, and a map of his regiment's movement into Germany hangs above a book case that he made me when I was seven.
However, I don't think he took too kindly to my father after he converted to Judaism to marry my mother, which is strange that, in recent light, searching through family records, my father and uncles found that our origins, my grandfather's grandfather, was originally a Russian Jew who shed his identity upon coming to America. Of course with a name like Moses, I don't know how he managed.
My grandmother was even more mysterious. The epitome of frail, she had thinning white hair and a very hunched back. She was very loving, and I remember her simply being thrilled to be in the presence of her grandchildren. I always thought our religion had nothing to do with her love, but perhaps I was wrong, I was only a kid, remember. The most I could ever gather about her was that her great uncle had been a drummer-boy in the Civil War, and he was shot and killed. That always made me laugh when, in recent years, I would look at my drum set and my drumming performances with my high school jazz band. It would always subtly hit me that I was playing this music which was the embodiment of a people that my great great great uncle had fought to free, whether he was for it or not, that was another story, but I always figured there was a direct correlation between my great great great uncle fighting in the Civil War and my playing the jazz.
Of course, there is one memory I have in specific which shines resplendent in my repertoire of longing.
I'm not sure what the circumstances were, but I found myself alone with both of my grandparents when I was about seven, maybe eight... but no older than nine, I'm sure; and they took me to a dinosaur museum! (All the excitement I had is brimming over the cup in that exclamation point.) It wasn't the Museum of Natural Science, I remember, it was in the country, or at least out side of the city. I remember holding both of their hands as we championed through the darker halls of skeletons and stone. A funny thought strikes me now, that this was the first time I had witnessed anything older than my grandparents, these dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the rest of the trip to the museum is lost in the annals of my mind, but the one reminder I have of it is a green and black dinosaur figure. It's a T. rex, with poorly painted on teeth, yet it still managed to scare me at the time. I look back on it now and can do nothing but smile. Perhaps the most meaningful gift I ever got from them was this dinosaur given on a rainy day trip to the museum in April.
These are the memories that I've gathered from my visits to my grandparent's house in Long Island, the last I think when I was 13, after my bar mitzvah. I remember they didn't attend, but I still loved them. It's a hallowing thought to think that there are questions about my origins that I will never know, because of their silence. and I can never go back to that house in that all Irish neighborhood, I'm sure someone's already moved in, anyways.
I guess I just wish I knew them, really, that's not so much to ask is it?
