The Man I Didn't Know

I was ten and my brother twelve. We were just old enough to fight with one another for our entire trip east to a tiny town in Nowhere, Idaho. Our parents did their best to drown us out with a compilation of golden oldies and 80's mom rock. I guess it worked for most of the way because they talked amongst themselves after we'd bored of listening to their stories. We then turned to one another and shared our handheld games just long enough to get jealous of the other's play time and whined until we fell asleep. I'm still not sure how our parents made it through that stage in our pre-teen adolescence without throttling us both.

I don't recall the hotel we must have stayed at, or where we ate. I remember the weather feeling just like home and a park with an antler arch under which we took pictures. Then as if it appeared out of nowhere I remember the tiny studio apartment where he lived. It might even have been a motel. He had cats; I could lift a familiar scent that reminded me of a litter of barn cats as we soon as he opened the door. Never saw one though, they must have been smoking. I figured that had to be true since the reason he was sick was the cigarettes, so who would be be so bold as to still smoke?

He wore a cowboy hat that was brown and weathered. His boots too had been with him for some time. Simple but clean clothes covered a person I had seen only once when I was five. He didn't look like me really but it was hard to tell under those deep wrinkles. I loved the color of his skin and how it was olive like my Mom's and I thought again how my uncle looked like him and how at least they must both be native with their dark features. I don't remember his eyes because my heart jumped when I tried to look at them. I was afraid, he was a stranger.

Mom hugged him and Dad shook his hand. I think I remember awkward side hugs from my brother and I but I can't be sure. My brother scanned the room just behind the open door for cats to tease. I searched the landscape for any distraction kind enough to present itself.  

His place had to be by that park because I remember us there again almost instantly after leaving his home. We walked, the quiet lot us trying and failing to find words to cut the silence. Once we arrived there was a picnic table and my brother and I took turns sitting on top of it and jumping off. We ran and screamed and chased squirrels because all we had were sage rats at home. He watched us and talked with my parents. I could hear a mumbling between them and smiles surfaced here and there as I pretended not to watch them in my curiosity.

He was like someone who belonged in a movie (if you were to go off his appearance and demeanor alone). The cats and their smokes had to hang back because they tarnished his rugged look. I knew he had been in a war that was a long time ago, different from the one my Dad's father fought. Mom had told me he was sick, something bad with his lungs. I knew he had left my Grandma with gaggle of young children. I had a feeling he might drink. But all this was the summation of my knowledge of him and I wanted to know more.

I'll never forget standing in front of him and shielding my eyes from the sun as I asked him what he did with his days and how he was doing. His responses were quiet and sounded sad but he seemed interested about us kids so we told him about our lives that seemed so big. My brother was in karate and liked video games. I was an overweight ballerina that also really enjoyed volleyball. We did our best to talk up our talents and I remember his proud smile before looking up at the sun and back down to the ground.  He didn't know us but somehow we were still his.

We left him in Nowhere, Idaho that sunny day and it was the last time that we saw him. A year later we had inherited his trusty old Ford truck and a small box full of his own memories. We had his funeral at a church we didn't normally attend and my Grandma was there and that impressed and confused me. Even though I didn't remember much about him, I wanted another of those side hugs that smelled like cigarettes he shouldn't smoke and old cologne to cover it up. I missed the man I didn't know.

As we tend to do, I grew into the knowledge of my family history and who my Grandpa had once been. All of his relatives and kids have that olive skin and most have his very brown eyes- except for the ones that are crystal blue. I still don't know his heritage but I'm more convinced now than ever that native blood colors our unique phenotype.

Of all I have learned of him I have become proud. Sure, he made choices that hurt. I was right to suspect he indulged in the drink. His children missed out on having a father because of it and as a result had the misfortune of experiencing a monster of a stepfather. But he gave them all life, one of them being the amazing woman who did the same for me. His niece told us what a great and kind person he was and how he was one of her favorite people in the whole world. As a young man he was a cook in the Navy and was the only survivor when his ship went down during the Korean War. He was a veteran, and probably the reason my Mom has never stopped chronicling the bravery and accomplishments of other vets- because she doesn't want any others to become forgotten heroes.

I may not have ever known him but I see reflections of that quiet man in my world today. I see him in my dark features, and the absence of him in my very European skin that every summer I can remember I wished to bronze so I could glow like his daughter does. I see him in the relatives Mom worked so hard to connect with after he was gone, the tribe of people that are ours at last.

Sometimes our gift to this world is not what we can offer while we are here. It is enough that we simply are, for our presence has a ripple that reaches beyond who we are or are not and into those who will someday be.