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One of the grandsons took perhaps his last visit across the country to see Grandma. He had not been here for several years. Everything looked the same as when he was a boy. But everything was empty -- the yard, the beach, the breakfast table. He could remember the carefree happiness he and his brother and father used to feel here. But the carefree happiness was gone -- even in them...three men whose lives were still bigger than life. For the first time in his life, he longed for the past -- for the carefree happiness again. He longed for Grandpa to be back at the breakfast table. He longed for Dad to be a young man again. He longed for his cousins to fill the yard again...back when they were young and life was carefree. Each day, the desire for the way it used to be gripped him and did not let go.
The next day, he walked through the big front yard to the little storage shed. He opened its door, and there was the plastic brown bat and the whiffle ball! Who was the last one to touch that bat? He wondered, smiling. Was it Hammy; was it John; was it himself? He wanted to pick up the bat, but instead pushed close the shed door. As the door was closing he saw, neatly folded in the corner, the tent. ...All the happiness and life had abandoned this wonderful place.
The last day of his visit, he finished looking through the photo albums. Grandma was with him. He found an old newspaper clipping announcing his Grandma and Grandpa's engagement -- 60 years ago. There they were, a picture of Grandma and Grandpa engaged...just about 20 years old. What a striking couple. Grandma looked so beautiful, so vivacious with a hint of mischief in her smile. She looked so deeply in love with Grandpa. Could this beautiful girl be Grandma?
As he now looked at Grandma, she giggled as he pointed to the picture. Suddenly, he could imagine that same giggle in the beautiful young girl with the dimples in the picture. He could see and hear the young girl doing that same giggle, with that same smile. But the girl in the picture had a whole life before her. She had the carefree happiness back then -- glowing in her beautiful face. Oh Grandma, he thought, how can I turn time back 60 years for you? "It seems just like yesterday," Grandma sighed.
Just "yesterday", Grandma had everything. She had beauty and bubbling happiness and intense love. Sixty short years aged away her beauty. Even more tragic, 60 years took away and killed her happiness and love. Sixty years made everything go from beautiful, carefree, happy, and from deeply in love to old, painful, sad, and deeply suffering from the loss of her lifelong love. Sixty short years changed everything from wonderful to suffering.
When the grandson went to visit Grandma, he had gone with his sister. During their last day here, he and his sister felt a deepening sadness for their childhood carefree happiness, gone forever into memories. ...Now, the time had come to leave. His sister's plane was to leave two hours before his. As she said good-bye to Grandma, most likely for the last time, the grandson sat in the living room and listened to their soft and sad parting words. When his sister left, Grandma closed the door and went to her room. He heard her crying.
As she stopped crying, he suddenly noticed the quietness of Grandma's house. He had never known such quietness here before, not like this. Whenever he visited, loud and joyous talk and laughter filled the house. Even when he and his sister were the only visitors, still their own voices filled the house. But now with his sister gone and Grandma in her room, he felt a quietness he never knew before. Oh, what a sad quietness...the quietness of life lost and good times gone forever.
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