Featured Here: "Shoulders of Giants" by Michaela Boydston, "Learning from the Land" by Manuel Hernandez, "Do Not Serve Over Steamed Vegetables" by D.E. Holy, "Tenchi Muyo" by Tenchi Wells, "Chocolate Milk" by Garrett James Wyatt
Shoulders of Giants
by Michaela Boydston |
I felt small. An insignificant being, so easily overshadowed if someone had the inclination. I had a healthy figure, but it was limited to five feet and that was considerably beneath the stature of the young men that surrounded me.
A female in a male dominated career; the old cliché that still stuck after so many years of women’s lib. People lobbied, protested, led outcries against sexual discrimination. But that didn’t make me any taller.
My size I couldn’t- can’t -change. It’s a card genetics dealt while, by some twisted joke, my passions turned to a field occupied by giants.
I had one thing going for me: what my body lacked in capacity, my mind made up for in strength. An advantage I was eager to grow- the only thing I had the power to grow. I could see farther than they could, but only as the wren hidden among the feathers of the eagle.
A stowaway was what I felt myself to be, but one that stood on her own.
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” -Isaac Newton
A female in a male dominated career; the old cliché that still stuck after so many years of women’s lib. People lobbied, protested, led outcries against sexual discrimination. But that didn’t make me any taller.
My size I couldn’t- can’t -change. It’s a card genetics dealt while, by some twisted joke, my passions turned to a field occupied by giants.
I had one thing going for me: what my body lacked in capacity, my mind made up for in strength. An advantage I was eager to grow- the only thing I had the power to grow. I could see farther than they could, but only as the wren hidden among the feathers of the eagle.
A stowaway was what I felt myself to be, but one that stood on her own.
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” -Isaac Newton
Learning from the Land
by Manuel Hernandez
by Manuel Hernandez
Summer of 2009, I am eight years old, I visit a small park in Santa Paula for the first time, I fall in love with my first natural land. It was a small quiet creek, where the only visible impact of human nature was the occasional cairn or graffitied boulder. It’s not much in comparison to all of the stunningly beautiful landscapes that our planet has to offer, but it was my own local refuge. The area where for a few years I could go to disconnect from whatever anxieties were plaguing my mind. In 2013, four years after I had fallen in love with this area, the creek turned a pitch black from a nearby oil spill. The next year, the creek had run dry, a consequence of the ongoing drought that had been hitting California since 2011. This was my first experience with the rapid degradation of natural areas. In a way, it was my wake-up call to all the issues that our planet was facing and an inspiration for what I am trying to dedicate my life to.
Sometimes I miss the days before the creek was lost, before I started paying attention to what was going on around us, because at least then I could still enjoy nature in blissful ignorance. Nowadays, falling in love with new landscapes means I have the great honor of feeling anxious about them later. Don’t get me wrong, visiting new lands is always a great pleasure. The most serene moments in my life have been spent admiring a banana slug try and scale the immense trees that have grown in Northern California’s redwood forests, or laying in the fine sand of the Mojave desert and watching stars I never could have imagined existed. These are all wonderful moments, but the personal issue is with the anxieties that begin to manifest on the drive home. Questions of, how long will it be until logging, invasive species, or widespread fires leave the banana slugs without any giants to try and conquer? How much longer until cities begin to encroach on our remote deserts destroying the starscape? Will future generations even be able to see stars, or will light pollution just turn our night sky dull?
As I drive home these anxieties give birth to even more uncomfortable emotions, namely guilt. Here I am worried about the future health of lands I admire for their beauty and the emotions they instill in me, all while I operate a two-thousand-pound pollution machine. Pollution that will not only go on to exacerbate the degradation of the areas I have a personal connection to but also increase the degradation of the ecosystems that other communities rely on in a much deeper way. I start to question my role in these losses of ecosystems and the blindspots I have towards the degradation occurring in the world all over and not just in my backyard. If I have these anxieties how hard must it be for those other communities that are on the frontlines of these losses and environmental disasters who often have much fewer resources to deal with it all.
In Brazil, illegal logging, mining, and clear-cutting is becoming a huge threat to the four hundred indigenous tribes that call the Amazon forest their home according to Sophie Hirsh from GreenMatters. These are four hundred different communities that unlike me aren’t just losing areas they love but also their entire way of life. These are incredibly painful losses for these indigenous communities and it’s devastating to think about how their plight is so often ignored, both by President Bolsonaro as he refuses to enforce the legislation that serves to protect them and even activists often seem to fight for the Amazon on the idea that it is “the lungs of the Earth” and largely ignore its function as a home to many Native communities. Five thousand kilometers north of Brazil other indigenous communities are being disproportionately damaged by the environment as more and more intense hurricanes begin to hit landfall. Just a few months ago Hurricane Eta struck Nicaragua, first landing on the coast which is home to the indigenous Miskito people. The Washington Post points out that “limited resources in these communities mean that natural disasters are ‘devastating,’” It’s hard to imagine that a community with so few resources has much of a carbon footprint contributing to the resource and natural disaster problem they are forced to face. Last November, as I enjoyed the A/C of my car during my lunch I hear of Hurricane Iota. Just one month after the last one, another intense hurricane to make landfall in the same community that is least responsible for its formation.
I try to keep myself informed and see how I can get involved in fighting our environmental issues but sometimes it gets to be very overwhelming. These communities being harmed, lands at risk are only of the few that have popped up on my radar. It seems anywhere you look, you will be able to find another environmental issue hurting more people, more ecosystems at risk of being lost forever. If every issue were completely separate I fear I would have become completely paralyzed by it all. Luckily there are ways to help people and ecosystems all at the same time. My draw to conservation may have begun with a passion for nature but what has kept me going is the hope that in protecting the environment I can also protect other communities’ ability to live their own version of the good life. The hope that projects like sustainable aquaculture will both help protect animal biodiversity as well as providing frontline communities with the resources to help get them through the environmental disasters that are yet to come.
Citations:
Anna-Cat Brigida, Matthew Cappucci. “Hurricane Eta Makes Landfall in Nicaragua as a Fierce Category 4 Storm; Flood Disaster Looms.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 4 Nov. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/03/hurricane-eta-nicaragua-flooding/.
Hirsh, Sophie. “The Amazon Fires Are Destroying Indigenous People's Homes - We Interviewed an Amazon Watch Director to Learn More.” Green Matters, Green Matters, 23 Aug. 2019, www.greenmatters.com/p/amazon-rainforest-fires-indigenous-tribes.
Sometimes I miss the days before the creek was lost, before I started paying attention to what was going on around us, because at least then I could still enjoy nature in blissful ignorance. Nowadays, falling in love with new landscapes means I have the great honor of feeling anxious about them later. Don’t get me wrong, visiting new lands is always a great pleasure. The most serene moments in my life have been spent admiring a banana slug try and scale the immense trees that have grown in Northern California’s redwood forests, or laying in the fine sand of the Mojave desert and watching stars I never could have imagined existed. These are all wonderful moments, but the personal issue is with the anxieties that begin to manifest on the drive home. Questions of, how long will it be until logging, invasive species, or widespread fires leave the banana slugs without any giants to try and conquer? How much longer until cities begin to encroach on our remote deserts destroying the starscape? Will future generations even be able to see stars, or will light pollution just turn our night sky dull?
As I drive home these anxieties give birth to even more uncomfortable emotions, namely guilt. Here I am worried about the future health of lands I admire for their beauty and the emotions they instill in me, all while I operate a two-thousand-pound pollution machine. Pollution that will not only go on to exacerbate the degradation of the areas I have a personal connection to but also increase the degradation of the ecosystems that other communities rely on in a much deeper way. I start to question my role in these losses of ecosystems and the blindspots I have towards the degradation occurring in the world all over and not just in my backyard. If I have these anxieties how hard must it be for those other communities that are on the frontlines of these losses and environmental disasters who often have much fewer resources to deal with it all.
In Brazil, illegal logging, mining, and clear-cutting is becoming a huge threat to the four hundred indigenous tribes that call the Amazon forest their home according to Sophie Hirsh from GreenMatters. These are four hundred different communities that unlike me aren’t just losing areas they love but also their entire way of life. These are incredibly painful losses for these indigenous communities and it’s devastating to think about how their plight is so often ignored, both by President Bolsonaro as he refuses to enforce the legislation that serves to protect them and even activists often seem to fight for the Amazon on the idea that it is “the lungs of the Earth” and largely ignore its function as a home to many Native communities. Five thousand kilometers north of Brazil other indigenous communities are being disproportionately damaged by the environment as more and more intense hurricanes begin to hit landfall. Just a few months ago Hurricane Eta struck Nicaragua, first landing on the coast which is home to the indigenous Miskito people. The Washington Post points out that “limited resources in these communities mean that natural disasters are ‘devastating,’” It’s hard to imagine that a community with so few resources has much of a carbon footprint contributing to the resource and natural disaster problem they are forced to face. Last November, as I enjoyed the A/C of my car during my lunch I hear of Hurricane Iota. Just one month after the last one, another intense hurricane to make landfall in the same community that is least responsible for its formation.
I try to keep myself informed and see how I can get involved in fighting our environmental issues but sometimes it gets to be very overwhelming. These communities being harmed, lands at risk are only of the few that have popped up on my radar. It seems anywhere you look, you will be able to find another environmental issue hurting more people, more ecosystems at risk of being lost forever. If every issue were completely separate I fear I would have become completely paralyzed by it all. Luckily there are ways to help people and ecosystems all at the same time. My draw to conservation may have begun with a passion for nature but what has kept me going is the hope that in protecting the environment I can also protect other communities’ ability to live their own version of the good life. The hope that projects like sustainable aquaculture will both help protect animal biodiversity as well as providing frontline communities with the resources to help get them through the environmental disasters that are yet to come.
Citations:
Anna-Cat Brigida, Matthew Cappucci. “Hurricane Eta Makes Landfall in Nicaragua as a Fierce Category 4 Storm; Flood Disaster Looms.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 4 Nov. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/03/hurricane-eta-nicaragua-flooding/.
Hirsh, Sophie. “The Amazon Fires Are Destroying Indigenous People's Homes - We Interviewed an Amazon Watch Director to Learn More.” Green Matters, Green Matters, 23 Aug. 2019, www.greenmatters.com/p/amazon-rainforest-fires-indigenous-tribes.
Do Not Serve Over Steamed Vegetables
by D. E. Holy
by D. E. Holy
Tenchi Muyo
by Tenchi Wells
by Tenchi Wells
I’ve always imagined the angels in heaven clustered around their televisions watching the program of my life during pauses of praising the Lord. Some are lounging with their feet kicked up on their silky satin sofas while they watch me skate in circles in an empty basketball court. Others are pacing to and fro across the pearlescent marble floor, concerned that I’m procrastinating my personal essay until hours before it’s due. I wonder if the cherub children are allowed to watch my show? I suppose I would be a bad influence, encouraging them to neglect their angel homework from angel school. God runs a tight ship. There’s no room for an uneducated guardian angel.
But all the while God is in his production studio, fine tuning my life with the ivory knobs and gold coated switches on his mixing console. Reality TV has a delicate balance. Enough conflict to keep the show engaging, but not too much as to risk breaking the star. As the Bible says in Corinthians, God won’t test us with anything more than what we can handle.
Now I understand how narcissistic this all makes me sound. How dare I suggest that the spotlight of heaven rests solely upon me? That I, Tenchi, am the main character of this reality and that God Himself is the lead writer and executive producer of my storyline? But I will let you know that my plot armor is as thick as the biceps of Sampson, and it is plated with the same gold and silver that molded the Ark of the Covenant.
Season 2, Episode 17 - “No Need For Hunger!”
It was a humid Sunday afternoon. Heaven was shining high above my parents and I, tracking our laboured steps through a shopping center parking lot. The black top was sweating beneath our feet. Our wallets were dry and barren. We had a tradition to go to Subway after church and split two $5 footlongs for lunch, but today we carried a bulky blue cooler bag filled with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chilled water bottles. It was one of those days when we had to choose to eat out or buy gas to get home; it wasn’t really a choice.
As we headed towards a Ralph’s to find refuge from the blistering stage lights, my parents noticed something floating from the sky in their peripheral vision. It descended to the ground like a dove, landing a few feet from my dad. He picked up the delivery from heaven and unfolded it to find $35. Now being the good Samaritan that my dad is, he quickly visited every shopping cart in the vicinity, asking to see if they had lost some money on the way to their car. All quietly declined until one elderly lady stopped my dad and provided some sage advice: “When God gives you a gift, don’t give it away.” I’ve always loved to imagine that lady was an angel sent down to deliver the succinct moral to the story as the episode faded to black.
My family feasted on our footlongs that day, and we returned home to my grandma's house with a half a tank of gas. We listened to the angel’s words, we held on to every gift from God for dear life. We were living from blessing to blessing, the beginning of my show’s characteristic gimmick.
Season 3, Episode 3 - “No Need For Worries!”
We had finally moved out of my grandma’s house and into a small, intimate apartment. To get to our meager residence, you had to climb up a creaky metal spiral staircase that groaned in displeasure after every step. The complex was cavernous and prison-like. Clanging, barred gates opened into a rectangular courtyard where local kids often played. Cheerful children laughing and loud bounces of kick balls could always be heard outside while gun talk and gang activity was handled inside by their older siblings.
One morning, we awoke to the sound of loud knocking at our door. Instead of my friend Juan who routinely asked if I could come out and play, we were greeted by a stern employee from the electricity company. He warned us that he would return later that day to turn off our electricity if we could not pay the $78.35 we owed. Once again our wallets were arid and fruitless and the gleaming morning spotlight streamed through the shutters. Our only recourse was to appeal to the producer of the show and ask for another conveniently timed gift.
At the time, our family friend Mike was a regular guest star on the show. He was tall with bright, earnest, blue eyes. All he would talk about was his book that he was writing about divorce and remarriage which he ironically would never finish because of his own divorce. He had stayed with us many times when he was in between jobs, and sometimes he would attend church with us on Sunday.
Mike arrived shortly after our unfortunate encounter with the electric company and we shared breakfast with him. My dad talked to him about scripture while my mom used our last drops of electricity to charge our electronics and prepare food for the next couple days. However, before Mike was about to leave, he turned around and presented us with another small gift from heaven. “Oh yeah, God told me to give this to you.” A check for $78.35.
But all the while God is in his production studio, fine tuning my life with the ivory knobs and gold coated switches on his mixing console. Reality TV has a delicate balance. Enough conflict to keep the show engaging, but not too much as to risk breaking the star. As the Bible says in Corinthians, God won’t test us with anything more than what we can handle.
Now I understand how narcissistic this all makes me sound. How dare I suggest that the spotlight of heaven rests solely upon me? That I, Tenchi, am the main character of this reality and that God Himself is the lead writer and executive producer of my storyline? But I will let you know that my plot armor is as thick as the biceps of Sampson, and it is plated with the same gold and silver that molded the Ark of the Covenant.
Season 2, Episode 17 - “No Need For Hunger!”
It was a humid Sunday afternoon. Heaven was shining high above my parents and I, tracking our laboured steps through a shopping center parking lot. The black top was sweating beneath our feet. Our wallets were dry and barren. We had a tradition to go to Subway after church and split two $5 footlongs for lunch, but today we carried a bulky blue cooler bag filled with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chilled water bottles. It was one of those days when we had to choose to eat out or buy gas to get home; it wasn’t really a choice.
As we headed towards a Ralph’s to find refuge from the blistering stage lights, my parents noticed something floating from the sky in their peripheral vision. It descended to the ground like a dove, landing a few feet from my dad. He picked up the delivery from heaven and unfolded it to find $35. Now being the good Samaritan that my dad is, he quickly visited every shopping cart in the vicinity, asking to see if they had lost some money on the way to their car. All quietly declined until one elderly lady stopped my dad and provided some sage advice: “When God gives you a gift, don’t give it away.” I’ve always loved to imagine that lady was an angel sent down to deliver the succinct moral to the story as the episode faded to black.
My family feasted on our footlongs that day, and we returned home to my grandma's house with a half a tank of gas. We listened to the angel’s words, we held on to every gift from God for dear life. We were living from blessing to blessing, the beginning of my show’s characteristic gimmick.
Season 3, Episode 3 - “No Need For Worries!”
We had finally moved out of my grandma’s house and into a small, intimate apartment. To get to our meager residence, you had to climb up a creaky metal spiral staircase that groaned in displeasure after every step. The complex was cavernous and prison-like. Clanging, barred gates opened into a rectangular courtyard where local kids often played. Cheerful children laughing and loud bounces of kick balls could always be heard outside while gun talk and gang activity was handled inside by their older siblings.
One morning, we awoke to the sound of loud knocking at our door. Instead of my friend Juan who routinely asked if I could come out and play, we were greeted by a stern employee from the electricity company. He warned us that he would return later that day to turn off our electricity if we could not pay the $78.35 we owed. Once again our wallets were arid and fruitless and the gleaming morning spotlight streamed through the shutters. Our only recourse was to appeal to the producer of the show and ask for another conveniently timed gift.
At the time, our family friend Mike was a regular guest star on the show. He was tall with bright, earnest, blue eyes. All he would talk about was his book that he was writing about divorce and remarriage which he ironically would never finish because of his own divorce. He had stayed with us many times when he was in between jobs, and sometimes he would attend church with us on Sunday.
Mike arrived shortly after our unfortunate encounter with the electric company and we shared breakfast with him. My dad talked to him about scripture while my mom used our last drops of electricity to charge our electronics and prepare food for the next couple days. However, before Mike was about to leave, he turned around and presented us with another small gift from heaven. “Oh yeah, God told me to give this to you.” A check for $78.35.
Tenchi Wells
Planet Earth
14 Feb 2021
Planet Earth
14 Feb 2021
The Editor
Heavenly Broadcasting
Dear God
I’m writing to you to express my sincere gratitude for the favor that you have shown me throughout the runtime of my show. Over the many years I’ve been on air, I have been conveniently saved from going hungry multiple times and I have never been without a roof over my head. In fact, there have even been times when I was able to have fun and enjoy some luxuries. I will never forget that one episode when I was able to buy my first iPod Touch when I sold my dad’s DS’s and all of our games to a local GameStop.
Although, here is where my main concern lies. Do all of my victories have to come at a cost? And do all of my blessings have to be in the face of no electricity, hunger, or homelessness? Don’t get me wrong, it does make for an engaging show for the moment, but won’t the audience get bored or even annoyed after the 100th time you narrowly save me from a peril that you could have easily prevented in the first place? People might criticize the show for lazy and redundant writing.
While I’m sure you know how to run a successful program more than I do, I would urge you to reconsider the predictable pattern that this show has been following for the past 20 years. Perhaps the next set of blessings could be a bit more permanent. Ex machina resolutions are quickly falling out of fashion.
Thank you
Heavenly Broadcasting
Dear God
I’m writing to you to express my sincere gratitude for the favor that you have shown me throughout the runtime of my show. Over the many years I’ve been on air, I have been conveniently saved from going hungry multiple times and I have never been without a roof over my head. In fact, there have even been times when I was able to have fun and enjoy some luxuries. I will never forget that one episode when I was able to buy my first iPod Touch when I sold my dad’s DS’s and all of our games to a local GameStop.
Although, here is where my main concern lies. Do all of my victories have to come at a cost? And do all of my blessings have to be in the face of no electricity, hunger, or homelessness? Don’t get me wrong, it does make for an engaging show for the moment, but won’t the audience get bored or even annoyed after the 100th time you narrowly save me from a peril that you could have easily prevented in the first place? People might criticize the show for lazy and redundant writing.
While I’m sure you know how to run a successful program more than I do, I would urge you to reconsider the predictable pattern that this show has been following for the past 20 years. Perhaps the next set of blessings could be a bit more permanent. Ex machina resolutions are quickly falling out of fashion.
Thank you
Yours Faithfully,
Tenchi
Tenchi
Chocolate Milk
by Garrett James Wyatt
by Garrett James Wyatt
Childhood
Having been called to be missionaries, my paternal grandparents, Nana and Papa, spent much of their adult life living and working abroad. When I was born, they were half a world away living in Lithuania, missing my birth and not getting a chance to see me for part of my first year of life. Because they spent so much time abroad, they often missed out on key years and experiences with their grandchildren. So, they tried to create traditions to look forward to whenever any of us would visit. There were always three things that I knew would come out of each visit:
1. There would be chocolate milk.
2. My Papa and I would set up and play with his motorized train and his old west themed Playmobil collection.
3. I would receive hugs and elephant kisses from my Papa.
I’m not sure how the tradition of chocolate milk started, but there was always chocolate milk. There was chocolate milk with every meal. Breakfast of a silky, warm soft-boiled egg and turkey bacon? There was chocolate milk. Lunch of some previously unheard-of dish from a foreign country? There was chocolate milk. Dinner of chicken and steamed yellow squash? There was chocolate milk. And if we ever ran out of chocolate milk, my Papa would put me in the car with him and we would make a quick run to the grocery store to get more, never really speaking to anyone unless he had to; he was a quiet man.
When not drinking chocolate milk, my Papa and I would sit on the floor of the living room of his and my Nana’s home, surrounded by paintings and knickknacks from Africa, chronicling the time my grandparents lived there. We would transform the room from being a recreation of an African Savannah to taking us back in time to the American old west. We would spend hours each time setting everything up—the train, the train station, the saloon, the fort, etc.—the perfectionist in the two of us would come alive during these times. We both spent so much time trying to make it all look perfect, that I’m not sure we ever really got around to playing with any of it. For us, the set up was the most fun part.
My Papa would always complain about how kneeling on the cold tile was hard on his knees, and at lunch my Nana would sketch out plans for a table that would be kept in the garage where the train and Playmobil would be kept year-round. This table never happened, though, because I think my Nana knew it would take the fun out of it for us both; we would no longer have the setup, the tradition that bonded us.
During one visit, my grandparents decided to have both of their grandson’s stay with them for a few days. It seemed like a good idea, but I suppose changing traditions doesn’t always work out too well. My younger cousin, Nolan, became frustrated with my Papa and I, because we spent so much time setting everything up. Nolan was your average young boy, he just wanted to play and make things smash into each other, he had no interest in the design and layout of things. To maintain the peace in the family and prevent my Papa and I from having an aneurism, they never had both grandsons stay the weekend with them at the same time again. The train and the old west remained mine and my Papa’s tradition—Nolan didn’t like chocolate milk anyways.
At this point in my life, I was just a small toe-headed child full of childlike curiosities and behaviors, and my Papa was a tall man with a protruding stomach like Santa Claus, his hair thinning rapidly. And with every hello and goodbye, I would receive a hug from my Papa, his belly protruding in my face, and he would exclaim, “elephant kiss!” raising one hand up, like an elephant’s trunk, and then rushing it down and cupping the top of my head with it.
Adolescence
My Papa was diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). His mother was one of fourteen siblings, eleven of which had different variations of Dementia and Alzheimer’s, herself included. The family had been noticing changes in Papa for a few years that I didn’t always quite catch—he became much more talkative, developed an obsession with sweets, his memory began to slip, etc. I had always seen my Papa as a more childlike man since our whole relationship was based on playing. But around this time, I began staying with my grandparents more often, so I got to witness firsthand the changes in my Papa, and it became apparent to me that I was growing older and that my Papa seemed to be growing younger. Thus, our traditions and expectations of each visit changed as well. This was what was certain of each visit:
1. There would be chocolate milk.
2. We would play numerous games of Hand and Foot.
3. My Papa would give me a fist bump and explain why.
There was still always chocolate milk. However, my Papa had his license taken away due to his FTD, so the tradition now fell on the shoulders of my Nana. My Papa, I’m sure, pushed her into continuing to buy it as he wanted me to have a special treat. His taste buds began to evolve to only liking sweets, so he was very insistent of it being in the house when I was there, hoping that it would be an excuse for him to have something sweet too.
I had grown out of playing with the train set and Playmobil, which meant we had to find something else to play with to remain bonded. This came in the form of a card game called “Hand and Foot.” Like a persistent little kid, during each period of downtime my Papa would ask, “want to play a game?” And thus, the multiple decks of cards and scrap pieces of paper for keeping scores, would be broken out.
Much like playing with the train set and Playmobil, Hand and Foot displayed the perfectionist sides of my Papa and me. Both of us insistent on shuffling a deck of cards three times before passing, having to neatly arrange our cards on the table—my Papa would panic and bang on the table if one of his cats jumped up threatening to ruin our neat arrangements.
During this period, his filter began to disappear. The once quiet, gentle giant became ever-so-talkative. Although, he almost always won every game of Hand and Foot, whenever someone was ahead of him in points he would say, “the card fairies are playing tricks on me.” When in public, the man who never went out of his way to talk to people he didn’t know, began going up to couples with young children saying, “you gotta get this kid to the doctor. They’ve got a case of the cutes and there’s nothing the doctor can do about it.” Or when he told my mom, his daughter-in-law of thirty years that he couldn’t hug her anymore because “you have boobs.”
He also stopped giving handshakes, explaining to every single person, often multiple times, that he only gives fist bumps, because he heard that most germs for the flu are carried in the hands. Seeing him lose his filter and become so talkative and outgoing, the beginning of repetition of phrases and stories are what became the biggest indicators that his FTD was changing his behavior, making him grow younger as I grew older.
Adulthood
Now, the only thing certain of each visit is:
1. The constant repetition of questions and statements.
2. My Nana’s tears.
3. The return of hugs.
I spent this past summer at my grandparent’s once again, but this time, there was no chocolate milk. My Papa no longer remembers it was a tradition of ours, and without his pressures, it likely slipped my Nana’s mind to purchase any. The special treat was instead replaced with my Nana or I catching my Papa standing over the freezer at eleven p.m. eating ice cream right out of the carton. It’s the only thing he ever wants to eat, and he insists he’s never given enough.
He has continued to grow more outgoing and talkative, but his vocabulary has narrowed. His response to every question asked is, “I don’t know”, with a shrug. Whenever told something he doesn’t like, he scrunches up his face as if he’s just taken a bite from a lemon and exclaims, “bah humbug!” quite resembling Ebenezer Scrooge in his old age. And he repeats the same questions and statements about every ten minutes, “you staying cool?”, “any special girls in your life?”, “be sweet and make your momma proud”, “oh, you’re just so special”, “getting old is the pits”, and referring to me strictly as either “the boy” or by whatever words might be on the shirt I am wearing.
As we lose who my Papa is, or who we’ve known him as, more and more between each passing visit, we lose more of the traditions we’ve held onto for so many years. This summer I was unable to play games like Hand and Foot with my Papa. I’m not sure why I was unable to, and it still bothers me that I couldn’t. I think it was because each day walking back into my grandparents’ home, it was like I was bringing one of my six-year-olds home with me from the summer camp I work at. Perhaps it was because my patience was already shot, and I didn’t want to risk losing it on my Papa; I wanted to maintain having sweet memories of our traditions together. I’m not sure. No matter what the excuse is, it is a poor one.
The times normally spent playing games were replaced with tearful conversations with my Nana about his state of being—her often thanking me for talking to her, because it’s nice having another adult in the house again. Her giving me updates on the things he said, like him thinking her saying “the boy is gone” meant that I was dead, or that he couldn’t remember my sister, his eldest grandchild’s name, so he referred to her as “the girl with that cute baby.” The tradition developed into me hearing about him, not playing with him.
On the day that I left their home for the summer to return to school, my Papa hugged me goodbye—something that he had not done in at least six years—and he told me for about the tenth time that hour, “you are so special.” But that time, I really felt it. And it ached my heart to say goodbye to him, knowing that the next time I see him, I may not be someone he remembers too well, he may forget how special I am to him. But I know that I will never forget how special he is to me.
So although traditions have changed and I’ve grown up and he’s grown down, I know that if I ever need a reminder of how special I am, all I need to do is take a sip of a glass of chocolate milk and remember all of the traditions and memories shared with my Papa.
Having been called to be missionaries, my paternal grandparents, Nana and Papa, spent much of their adult life living and working abroad. When I was born, they were half a world away living in Lithuania, missing my birth and not getting a chance to see me for part of my first year of life. Because they spent so much time abroad, they often missed out on key years and experiences with their grandchildren. So, they tried to create traditions to look forward to whenever any of us would visit. There were always three things that I knew would come out of each visit:
1. There would be chocolate milk.
2. My Papa and I would set up and play with his motorized train and his old west themed Playmobil collection.
3. I would receive hugs and elephant kisses from my Papa.
I’m not sure how the tradition of chocolate milk started, but there was always chocolate milk. There was chocolate milk with every meal. Breakfast of a silky, warm soft-boiled egg and turkey bacon? There was chocolate milk. Lunch of some previously unheard-of dish from a foreign country? There was chocolate milk. Dinner of chicken and steamed yellow squash? There was chocolate milk. And if we ever ran out of chocolate milk, my Papa would put me in the car with him and we would make a quick run to the grocery store to get more, never really speaking to anyone unless he had to; he was a quiet man.
When not drinking chocolate milk, my Papa and I would sit on the floor of the living room of his and my Nana’s home, surrounded by paintings and knickknacks from Africa, chronicling the time my grandparents lived there. We would transform the room from being a recreation of an African Savannah to taking us back in time to the American old west. We would spend hours each time setting everything up—the train, the train station, the saloon, the fort, etc.—the perfectionist in the two of us would come alive during these times. We both spent so much time trying to make it all look perfect, that I’m not sure we ever really got around to playing with any of it. For us, the set up was the most fun part.
My Papa would always complain about how kneeling on the cold tile was hard on his knees, and at lunch my Nana would sketch out plans for a table that would be kept in the garage where the train and Playmobil would be kept year-round. This table never happened, though, because I think my Nana knew it would take the fun out of it for us both; we would no longer have the setup, the tradition that bonded us.
During one visit, my grandparents decided to have both of their grandson’s stay with them for a few days. It seemed like a good idea, but I suppose changing traditions doesn’t always work out too well. My younger cousin, Nolan, became frustrated with my Papa and I, because we spent so much time setting everything up. Nolan was your average young boy, he just wanted to play and make things smash into each other, he had no interest in the design and layout of things. To maintain the peace in the family and prevent my Papa and I from having an aneurism, they never had both grandsons stay the weekend with them at the same time again. The train and the old west remained mine and my Papa’s tradition—Nolan didn’t like chocolate milk anyways.
At this point in my life, I was just a small toe-headed child full of childlike curiosities and behaviors, and my Papa was a tall man with a protruding stomach like Santa Claus, his hair thinning rapidly. And with every hello and goodbye, I would receive a hug from my Papa, his belly protruding in my face, and he would exclaim, “elephant kiss!” raising one hand up, like an elephant’s trunk, and then rushing it down and cupping the top of my head with it.
Adolescence
My Papa was diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). His mother was one of fourteen siblings, eleven of which had different variations of Dementia and Alzheimer’s, herself included. The family had been noticing changes in Papa for a few years that I didn’t always quite catch—he became much more talkative, developed an obsession with sweets, his memory began to slip, etc. I had always seen my Papa as a more childlike man since our whole relationship was based on playing. But around this time, I began staying with my grandparents more often, so I got to witness firsthand the changes in my Papa, and it became apparent to me that I was growing older and that my Papa seemed to be growing younger. Thus, our traditions and expectations of each visit changed as well. This was what was certain of each visit:
1. There would be chocolate milk.
2. We would play numerous games of Hand and Foot.
3. My Papa would give me a fist bump and explain why.
There was still always chocolate milk. However, my Papa had his license taken away due to his FTD, so the tradition now fell on the shoulders of my Nana. My Papa, I’m sure, pushed her into continuing to buy it as he wanted me to have a special treat. His taste buds began to evolve to only liking sweets, so he was very insistent of it being in the house when I was there, hoping that it would be an excuse for him to have something sweet too.
I had grown out of playing with the train set and Playmobil, which meant we had to find something else to play with to remain bonded. This came in the form of a card game called “Hand and Foot.” Like a persistent little kid, during each period of downtime my Papa would ask, “want to play a game?” And thus, the multiple decks of cards and scrap pieces of paper for keeping scores, would be broken out.
Much like playing with the train set and Playmobil, Hand and Foot displayed the perfectionist sides of my Papa and me. Both of us insistent on shuffling a deck of cards three times before passing, having to neatly arrange our cards on the table—my Papa would panic and bang on the table if one of his cats jumped up threatening to ruin our neat arrangements.
During this period, his filter began to disappear. The once quiet, gentle giant became ever-so-talkative. Although, he almost always won every game of Hand and Foot, whenever someone was ahead of him in points he would say, “the card fairies are playing tricks on me.” When in public, the man who never went out of his way to talk to people he didn’t know, began going up to couples with young children saying, “you gotta get this kid to the doctor. They’ve got a case of the cutes and there’s nothing the doctor can do about it.” Or when he told my mom, his daughter-in-law of thirty years that he couldn’t hug her anymore because “you have boobs.”
He also stopped giving handshakes, explaining to every single person, often multiple times, that he only gives fist bumps, because he heard that most germs for the flu are carried in the hands. Seeing him lose his filter and become so talkative and outgoing, the beginning of repetition of phrases and stories are what became the biggest indicators that his FTD was changing his behavior, making him grow younger as I grew older.
Adulthood
Now, the only thing certain of each visit is:
1. The constant repetition of questions and statements.
2. My Nana’s tears.
3. The return of hugs.
I spent this past summer at my grandparent’s once again, but this time, there was no chocolate milk. My Papa no longer remembers it was a tradition of ours, and without his pressures, it likely slipped my Nana’s mind to purchase any. The special treat was instead replaced with my Nana or I catching my Papa standing over the freezer at eleven p.m. eating ice cream right out of the carton. It’s the only thing he ever wants to eat, and he insists he’s never given enough.
He has continued to grow more outgoing and talkative, but his vocabulary has narrowed. His response to every question asked is, “I don’t know”, with a shrug. Whenever told something he doesn’t like, he scrunches up his face as if he’s just taken a bite from a lemon and exclaims, “bah humbug!” quite resembling Ebenezer Scrooge in his old age. And he repeats the same questions and statements about every ten minutes, “you staying cool?”, “any special girls in your life?”, “be sweet and make your momma proud”, “oh, you’re just so special”, “getting old is the pits”, and referring to me strictly as either “the boy” or by whatever words might be on the shirt I am wearing.
As we lose who my Papa is, or who we’ve known him as, more and more between each passing visit, we lose more of the traditions we’ve held onto for so many years. This summer I was unable to play games like Hand and Foot with my Papa. I’m not sure why I was unable to, and it still bothers me that I couldn’t. I think it was because each day walking back into my grandparents’ home, it was like I was bringing one of my six-year-olds home with me from the summer camp I work at. Perhaps it was because my patience was already shot, and I didn’t want to risk losing it on my Papa; I wanted to maintain having sweet memories of our traditions together. I’m not sure. No matter what the excuse is, it is a poor one.
The times normally spent playing games were replaced with tearful conversations with my Nana about his state of being—her often thanking me for talking to her, because it’s nice having another adult in the house again. Her giving me updates on the things he said, like him thinking her saying “the boy is gone” meant that I was dead, or that he couldn’t remember my sister, his eldest grandchild’s name, so he referred to her as “the girl with that cute baby.” The tradition developed into me hearing about him, not playing with him.
On the day that I left their home for the summer to return to school, my Papa hugged me goodbye—something that he had not done in at least six years—and he told me for about the tenth time that hour, “you are so special.” But that time, I really felt it. And it ached my heart to say goodbye to him, knowing that the next time I see him, I may not be someone he remembers too well, he may forget how special I am to him. But I know that I will never forget how special he is to me.
So although traditions have changed and I’ve grown up and he’s grown down, I know that if I ever need a reminder of how special I am, all I need to do is take a sip of a glass of chocolate milk and remember all of the traditions and memories shared with my Papa.
Header Photo Credit: Joe Dudeck