Lost Memories... or Not.

The doctors have said my grandfather has lost his mind. I have always considered it “information overload“. He has lived for almost one hundred years. That’s almost a hundred years of information and memories. Everyone has trouble dealing with my grandfather. They get annoyed from having to run him down the road. He just gets bored. It isn’t his fault. He was always a busy-body, ever since he was a child. He may not remember my name, but he has that fiery ambition to do something every second of the day. That’s when I volunteered to sit with him once a week and use the gardening skills he taught me 13 years ago. Well, we didn’t sit…

            I went to my grandfathers with seeds and gardening supplies. I got the keys to the plow to ready the dirt for planting. I used it to stir the dirt up and make it soft and easy to work with. My grandfather went in straight lines and made a perfect rectangle, and mine were, well, not a rectangle at all. He was sure to tell me so. We went out to start some busy work. Funny, how he remembered what a garden should look like. Next, we sorted the seeds. We had onion bulbs, tomato plants, peppers, potatoes, squash, and cucumbers. After deciding where we wanted them, we started to plant. As we were digging the holes, about 10-12 inches deep depending on the root or seed, he started to talk about his past. He was telling me stories of when he was a young boy and he used to grow tomatoes, load them into a wagon, and sell them around town. As he grew older and married my grandmother, they both then cared for the garden. Even after having two children, selling vegetables in town was their only income. It amazed me how selling vegetables through town paid for their house, car, and other needs. We placed the onion bulbs down into the holes. My grandfather immediately grabbed the back hoe and started to cover the holes. He said to me, “Don’t pack the dirt on top, lightly cover it, and keep it as natural as possible.”

            After finishing the all the vegetables except the potatoes, he went on into another story. He told me so many things of his childhood, and adult hood, and yet he didn’t remember what my name was, constantly asking me who I was. It hurt a little. I used to practically live with my grandparents every summer and weekend. We dug the holes for the potatoes. “Be sure to place the root down,” he said. He then, picked up the back hoe after we were finished, and covered the holes lightly, not packed. When we were done, we stepped back. Our garden looked like a professional garden on a magazine cover. I then walked my grandfather back inside. We ate soup beans and corn bread for dinner. “I wish those onions we planted were grown and ready to eat with this,” he said. How could he remember us in the garden? He hasn’t remembered anything else before. Then it was time for me to leave.

            The following week, I went back to my grandfathers. In hopes of him remembering me, he still continued to ask my name. My grandmother said that he kept looking out the window at the garden all week. It had not rained yet, and he told her it looked too dry. So, he and I walked to the garden, hooked up a hose to the water well, and started to water the garden. “Not too much water or you’ll drown it,” he told me. After the garden was watered to his satisfaction, we went back in for dinner. Again, soup beans and cornbread. “I wish those onions we planted were grown and ready to eat with us,” he repeated as last time. He still didn’t remember my name. I helped him into his hospital bed, kissed him goodnight, and told him I would see him next week at the same time.

            I continued to visit and about a month had passed. I arrived with stakes, which are large wooden poles and some yarn for the tomato plants. They had started to flop over and needed added support. We ventured up to the garden with our supplies for the tomatoes. My grandfather placed them each next to the plant as I used the mallet to hammer the stakes down into the ground. After each stake was placed, we then took the yarn and tied the plant up to each stake. All the vegetables were looking great, soon they would need to be harvested. We gone back into the house to eat our soup beans and cornbread. Again, my grandfather mentioned the onions. Finishing our food, he started to talk about a photo of him and a 1920 car. After selling vegetables as a child and young adult, prices of living increased, he started to work at Garland Tires. He knew how to work on every type of engine. They walked me out to my car that night, and my car made a funny noise for a while. He then told me to have the belt in the engine checked. My grandfather is almost blind, his hearing is nearly gone, and he has been having memory failure. How could he know this? I did take it in and told them what he had said. Sure enough, it was a lose belt in the engine.

            Luckily, the next week the onions were ready to be eaten. We walked up to the garden with a basket in each of our hands. We pulled up the onions, picked the tomatoes, dug up the potatoes, and gathered the rest of the ripe vegetables. He kept asking me who I was. He said that that year’s garden was the best he had ever seen. Keep in mind he is half blind. After gathering our hard work, we went inside for our usual soup beans and cornbread. I placed the onions that he kept asking for on the table. He immediately grabbed two to three. Out of curiosity, I asked him why he thought our garden was the best he ever saw. He then said, “Christina, these onions taste so good with these soup beans and cornbread.” I just smiled.