So Far

My grandmother smiled as I parked the car on the shoulder of the dirt road. She stared at a pair of desolate buildings standing in an overgrown field. “This is it,” she said, with a hint of excitement in her voice. I got out of the car and quickly walked around to the passenger side.

We had traveled for six hours. We could have made it in less time if Grandmother’s memories had been more reliable. Neither “the swimming hole where Donald nearly drowned” nor “the house where Aunt Jerry took piano lessons” appeared on the map, so we had been forced to backtrack a couple of times. Somehow, we had still found what we were looking for.

I softly held my grandmother’s arm until she steadied herself on the side of the car. She looked starkly out of place. The sparkle of her jewelry and the crispness of her designer clothing seemed alien in this bleak setting. Wealth and poverty seldom meet like this. I reached for my camera, hoping to capture this irony on film.

“No, no…” she waved the lens away and focused on the buildings.

Something about her face told me that this was where she belonged. The softness in her eyes said that she felt at ease. I looped the camera around my neck and once again took my grandmother’s elbow. We inched our way through the rampant weeds, perhaps the first people to walk this way in decades.

I sensed that my grandmother needed to be alone in her thoughts. I did not ask questions or make small talk; instead, I studied the structures as we crept along. They were so proud. The peeling paint and rusty water stains on the old white cottage were battle scars. The house was saying I may be bruised and battered, but I am still here. The small gray storage shed maintained the same silent dignity.

At the front door, I asked, “Are you ready for this?”

“I have dreamt of this for so long…pinch me!” Energized laughter accentuated her response as I grasped the worn doorknob. It would not turn.

“It’s locked,” I announced. I was disappointed, but my grandmother was resolute.

“Let me try,” she replied.

Her arthritic hands clutched the knob and turned. The door swung open as she cried, “I still have the touch!”

I reached for her elbow, like I had hundreds of times before, but she stopped me. “I need to do this alone.” She hesitated briefly and whispered, “I have come so far.” I am not sure if she meant in distance or in her life; either way, she was profoundly right.

With confidence, she stepped over the threshold. The door swung closed suddenly. It would not open. Panicked, I yelled for my grandmother. “Gram! Can you let me in? The door is stuck!”

I waited a few seconds, but heard nothing. I concentrated on the ancient handle, hoping she would turn it from within. When nothing happened, I pounded on the door. “Grandmother! Can you hear me? “ I worried about her inside this decaying building; her legs were so unreliable.

I remembered the bottom floor window. I raced along the front of the house as images of my grandmother lying hurt on a dilapidated floor filled my head. Breathlessly, I peered through the ancient window, afraid of what I might see.

I had expected rotten wood and crumbling walls, but instead I found myself looking at a tidy, simple kitchen. The sink was actually full of dishes. There were wildflowers in a vase and a loaf of baked bread on the table. My grandmother was nowhere to be seen.

I grabbed a hold of the crumbling windowpane. I tried to push it open, but I had no more luck than I had had with the door. I started searching the ground for a rock or something hard to throw through the glass. There was nothing.

I quickly removed my camera from around my neck. I shielded my eyes and braced myself for the crash of broken glass as I hurled it; instead, all I heard was the crack of the camera’s lens and a soft thud as it hit the ground.

Exasperated, I peered through the window again. I was startled by the unexpected appearance of a young woman stooped over the sink. I hammered on the window to get her attention, but my pleas were ignored. All I could do was watch and wait.

A small girl dashed into the room. She sought out the dishwashing woman and wrapped her tiny, slender arms around tall, lean legs. The woman bent down and scooped up the young girl. Their eyes laughed as they twirled and twirled around the kitchen. The dance ended with a loving embrace. She plucked a daisy out the vase and positioned it in the child’s hair. Cupping the tiny, angelic face in her hands, she smiled the undeniable smile of a mother and returned to the sink. The little girl hesitated and studied her mother for a few moments. Unlike her rush into the kitchen, she walked away slowly, deliberately, watching her mother over her shoulder until she was gone.

I was on the edge of a stage, watching a silent play. The characters were so close, yet they were in another world. I could feel my thoughts slowly drifting back to reality, back to my Grandmother. Before I could panic, though, my grandmother emerged from the house, pulling the door shut behind her.

She appeared in good shape; no cuts or scrapes, nothing in disarray. “I am ready to go now,” she said. She offered no explanation. Quizzically, I met her glistening gaze. Something about her was different; she seemed enlivened, somehow. Maybe rejuvenated was a better word…

As I studied every inch of her, however, I found something else to be distinctly different: there, in her flawlessly elegant hair, was a daisy.

She had come so far.



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