PaPaw The Time Traveler

 PaPaw The Time Traveler

I sit on my back deck just after sunrise, with coffee cup in hand, and a fleece, faintly smelling of cedar and campfire smoke, pulled tightly around me.  The world is quiet except for the distant hum of traffic, a few birds heralding the new day, and the soft creak of the rocking chair beneath me.  I stare at the sky as if it owes me an explanation.

Seventy-four!  The number felt impossible! It’s my birthday and I’m not sure if I should celebrate or mourn.

I remember the days when I would joyously celebrate my birthday, but now I can’t help but feel sad.  Maybe it’s because every year on my birthday, the guest list inside my memory grows longer than the one around my table.  Friends who laughed beside me in college, drinking buddies, fishing partners, cousins, brothers in everything except blood, one by one, they disappeared into framed photographs and cemetery stones.

The back door creaks open and my Grandson, Wilson comes running to my side with a toothless grin.  In his hand he has colored a crude birthday card. Peppa Pig, one tall, one short.  He had labeled one Papaw and the other Wilson.  In haphazard print he had written, Happy Birthday Papaw, Love Wilson.

The six-year-old climbed onto my lap and studied my face intently as I deciphered his work of art. There is no better feeling than to feel the innocent love a young child can give with such ease and no hesitation. The sadness of my memories began to fade as I savored this short moment with him.  Wilson continued to stare at me as if I was some kind of museum exhibit.

Finally, he asked, “Papaw…..were you alive when they invented cars?”

I laughed.  “Yes, buddy.  Barely.”

His eyes got huge. “REALLY?!”

Now the youngster was fully invested and quickly questions again, “Did you know Abraham Lincoln?”

I smile, “No.”

“Did you fight dinosaurs?”

“No.”

“Did TVs used to be black and white because color hadn’t been invented yet?”

It was at this point, I decided to have a little fun.

“Well,” I said, “when I was your age, we only had one crayon.  Dusty Brown.”

He gasped.  “That’s horrr-i—ble.”

A few minutes later, as his young mind tried to imagine my life at his age, he looked at me seriously, and said, “Papaw are you sad because you’re old?”

“Maybe a little.”

Then he patted my hand gently like I was a war hero or a rescued pioneer and says in a conspiratory whisper, “Papaw…. I think it’s great you lived all those olden days. Don’t be sad, because if you didn’t get old, you couldn’t be my Papaw!”

And for the rest of the day, every time someone came by the house, he proudly announced, “This is my Papaw.  He’s seventy-four and he’s still working perfectly!”