Rocks & Wood

I can remember sitting on the cold leather couch in my grandparents' basement, the feeling of the cool leather becoming hot and sticky under my knees. It was a place I normally avoided, but I can remember sitting there actively defying my discomfort, because my grandfather was sitting there too. He was going to show me what I, as a child, had come to believe to be one the greatest mysteries of the world; a glass jar containing a collection of rocks within which were a few pieces of petrified wood. I can remember how they felt so cool, just like all the other rocks. They were just as heavy as the rocks, and in fact, until he pointed them out I might not have known the difference. In unabashed childish confidence, I refused to believe that they were ever real wood, while secretly being delighted to be the subject of what I assumed must have been one of Grandpa's greatest tricks. To have somehow carved such delicate details into these rocks that they truly resembled little pieces of wood, and then to carry on as though they were once something else; I felt great pride in the thought that such efforts were being made to fool me.

But as my grandfather persisted, and his explanation continued with the greatest patience and love, I began to realize I was a fool in doubting my grandfather, not the wood. As I looked at my grandfather, he no longer seemed to be the same man, suddenly, in a way that only a child's mind can imagine, he was both human and magical, old enough to have watched this very piece of wood become rock and yet young enough to be holding me in his lap. I used to love looking at that jar of rocks, all the while thinking myself one of the luckiest girls to have a grandfather like mine.

Last week we said good bye to my grandfather. He had struggled for many years with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Communication had been difficult, if possible at all, over the last four years, yet I always felt he knew when I was there. Perhaps, for me, some of the magic from my childhood has always lingered with him.

Grandpa and Nana with Peter and Isabelle in 2005