Viztin'

By T'Mara Goodsell

A grandfather is someone with silver in his hair and gold in his heart.

~Author Unknown

My grandparents lived only a block away when I was growing up. That's wonderful when they're as apple pie perfect as mine were. It meant that they would often walk over, just because, and visit. In their slightly rural drawls, they called it "viztin'."

I could always recognize my grandfather, Daddy Homer, as he slowly made his way to and from our house, walking with a cane, wearing his hat. A grandpa hat. A former teacher, he had merry, mischievous eyes and a way that transformed learning into a big game. In his seventies, this man taught a child the lesson of a lifetime: No matter what your age, seize the play.

He taught me to plant tomatoes and dive like an arrow and walk on stilts. He taught me sign language so I could talk to people in "secret code." We played jokes and checkers and card tricks. We laughed till our stomachs hurt.

I loved to hear his low, melodic voice, as if words lazed in his mouth like a long summer's day. The stories lolled there, too, just as easy and just as choice. One of my favorites was about his brother, Willie, who had died at nineteen. Those two brothers made a pact just before Willie died. If there were any way at all he could come back to visit, he would.

"Did Willie come back?" I always asked, knowing what Daddy Homer would say.

The story he told was that he'd waited and waited for his brother to come back. Nothing happened. Then one day, early in the morning, he awoke to see Willie standing at the foot of his bed, smiling. Daddy Homer groggily sat up to get a better look, and Willie was gone.

"Was that really him," he would ask, smiling with the mystery of it, "or was I just dreaming?" Like everything else, he made it into a game — into just another one of life's exciting questions — but he never answered those questions for me. Like any great teacher, he knew that the best education lies not in the telling, but in the asking.

Appropriate, I guess, that the man who taught me so much about the joy of life didn't stop even after his own death.

I was seventeen then. After the funeral, as life settled down to the stage of learning-to-live-without-Daddy-Homer-in-the-world, I had the first dream. It started with a knock at the door. I swung it open, and there stood my grandfather, grinning with mischief.

"Daddy Homer!" I exclaimed. "What are you doing here? You're dead!"

He laughed merrily at my bluntness — something he'd always appreciated. "That doesn't mean I can't come viztin', does it?" His eyes danced with the glee of the joke. But for the fact that I was asleep, it really wasn't much different from the way things had been when he was alive. We talked, told jokes, played checkers and cards, told stories. And then he left. End of visit; end of dream.

Except more dreams brought him back, again and again. It was always a different visit, but the theme was the same: My grandfather, in spite of being dead, came viztin'. And then he would leave.

Once I watched him leave, curious to see where he would go. Would he disappear with a poof at the end of the walk? Sprout angel wings and fly? He only walked just as he always had, down the street with his grandpa hat and cane, walking slowly home until he crossed Woolworth Street and rounded the corner till I couldn't see him anymore.

The dreams went on for quite some time. My dog died, and Daddy Homer brought her back with him. I graduated from high school and started college. When I was lonely and homesick, he'd visit more. As I adjusted, he vizted less often.

Then one night, the dream was different. Instead of coming by, the phone rang. It was Daddy Homer. Did I feel like viztin' today? I felt horrible as I explained to him how busy I was. I was going out with friends and wouldn't be home that day. Could we make it another time?

There was a soft smile in his voice when he spoke. He sounded proud of me somehow. "That's just as it should be," he said. "That's what I've been waiting to hear."

I knew at that moment he wouldn't be viztin' again. When I said so, he gently explained that he wouldn't come back quite that way, but he would be there if I ever needed him.

I haven't had the dream again in the thirty years since, though I've often wished I would. There have been many times I hoped he was there, often catching a whiff of his trademark pipe tobacco. So many things I've taught my children and smiled, thinking of Daddy Homer.

There was even an incident when a beloved pet lay dying, and I thought I caught a glimpse of Daddy Homer scooping her tenderly into his arms. Just a flash and then gone, but I knew then, correctly, that she'd be gone, too. It was such a comfort to me. He would take care of her; of course he would.

Was that really him or was I just dreaming? It makes me smile to ask, though for myself, I know the answer. My grandfather may have taught me logic and skepticism, but he also taught me to find the playfulness — seize the play — in everything in life.

And even beyond.

http://www.chickensoup.com/