The Last Real Cowboy

I spoke with him last week.  He couldn't speak well, and he was no longer able to swallow food, and it was so clear that there were only days left.  Aunt Jodie had rummaged through the boxes of old photos in the closet upstairs and made copies for us grand kids, I had received them in the mail, wept at the image of my late grandmother, who could have been a silver screen siren, had she not been a battered, neglected housewife of an alcoholic cowboy.  As I flipped through the old photos, most of which I hadn't seen before, I stopped with a gasp at a shot of him as a young and reckless teen, dark and handsome in a rouge and dangerous way, and it occurred to me what an enchanting net he must have cast on my grandmother back then, on so many young girls at the grange dances, at the school sock hops, and eventually the rodeos, and bars.  Called a "dark" German, Hebrew to be sure, but that was all hush-hush for at least two generations before he was born, the little secret that arrived with our first ancestor from Wurtenburg, Prussia.  But goodness, he was a looker, my old grandpa in his day.  And so I called him, just to let him know I thought he was a heck of a lot prettier when he was younger, to rib him a bit, which, with him always translated to love. 

"I hardly recognized you," I lied, nearly yelling into the receiver because I knew he wasn't wearing his hearing aid.  I could hear him laughing, a faint, breath-like panting to let me know he caught the sarcasm.

"Yat," he agreed weakly.  "I suppose."

I couldn't talk long, and he couldn't endure much, laborious as it was to just communicate.  Just long enough to say I'm thinking him, and that I love him.

After nearly three long years of battling prostate cancer, he finally passed this morning peacefully in his bed in his own home.

My earliest knowledge of him wasn't really a face, but an energy.  A stark contrast to Grandma, who was bubbly, goofy, and affectionate, he was sullen, withdrawn, unreadable, distracted.  We four grand kids were careful around him.  He gave us our first horses.  He expected us to work the farm, and had better learn early how to ride, herd, cut, brand, rope, de-horn, and grow beef cattle like everyone else.  But riding with him was fun work.  He was a real cowboy, just like in the movies, and when we rode with him, we were in the movie too.

How I remember him when I was growing up.  Grandma and Grandpa with my dad and aunts in 1980.

I've always loved old photos, the ethereal, haunting images of a moment in history captured in a flash. I love them and hoard them when I can, so my kids can know their roots, the legacy they inherit, and also so I can remember, too.  It's hard to imagine my dad as a little boy with chubby cheeks and pudgy hands, smooth skin, and warm brown eyes like those of my own young sons.  It's even harder to imagine my grandpa fresh in life, even smiling, at the same season in life that I'm in now.

This must have been a wedding in 1956, because my great grandparents are wearing flowers, and everyone is dressed up.  My graceful grandma Luster in the center is holding Aunt Jodie, and my dad is in the back with his arm around Grandpa.    

But when I see him here, in fuzzy black and white images, I can find it around his eyes.  He suffered.  He struggled.  He had deep, damaging wounds.  He didn't have wisdom on his side, but goodness, he had experience.  He was born between miscarriages during the early years of the Depression.  His life was one shaped by strife and hunger.

Grandpa with his firstborn, my dad, in 1954.  

Some of my friends agree, but something happens when you are a mother of boys.  Suddenly, as if by a fragile invisible thread, all the boys in the world are your children.  Especially little ones about the same age as your own or younger, I feel responsible for each of them.  Aaron and I had an experience this summer that spurred us to seriously consider serving in foster care, or even adoption.  We have all this love to share, and there are so many, many little boys who desperately need it.  My grandpa was that little boy.

My grandpa here in overalls, offering flowers beside his older brother Dave and younger sister,  Zelda, in 1940.

I may have never had a relationship with him, but then he held his first great-grandson, Andres.  And I watched in a postpartum haze some profound and cosmic event unfold before my eyes as Grandpa held my brand new son in his arms for the first time:  he smiled.  For me at 28 it was the first time I had seen that man smile.  And for a man who scowled at me as a kid as a both a salutation and warning, he started to call me every week to check on "that boy."  We nurtured a fledgling relationship with Andres as a bridge, and once, well into his fight with cancer, we even talked for over an hour on the phone, and I treasure that conversation with him.  And then just after his 80th birthday this summer, he decided to be baptized, shocking all of us.

I'm so grateful he was able to meet my boys.  I'm so glad they helped him heal whatever had broken him so badly, so grateful that he and I became pals through them.  And while today I'm sad and grieving and missing him already, there is in a wide open field a new peace, and a new life without hurt or grief, regret or shame.  Only endless oceans of the ever-present glow and warmth of perfect and abundant love, grace, and renewal.

Jearl Heitzman, age 9 months, 1934.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14

Andres' 1st Animations

At 4:10
The Adventures of Calvin is an adaptation from Andres' favorite comics, Calvin and Hobbes, where our beloved protagonist imagines everyone around him as an enemy, especially his mom (now I wonder what Frued would say about Calvin)...and with his trusty sticky darts ("gun"--ugh!  but he is a boy after all!), defends himself against the overwhelming foe!  Disclaimer:  sound effects are more violent than actual video.

At 8:08
The Andres Show is an avant garde piece with postmodernism aspects as well as echoes of classic beatnik elements, and as Andres himself told us, "it's a sing along."  It's fun, creative, and pushes limits of visual storytelling.  So, we encourage you to sing along if you dare!


Book Animation from PORTLAND COMMUNITY MEDIA on Vimeo.

Muck

The summer has been a difficult one from the get-go.  A good one, but difficult for lots of reasons I'm still working through, still choking on.  And today.  Today is one of countless days that I wish I had a mom.  I would call her up, ask about the farm, chat about dinner menus, and share this horrible day with her perhaps as I cry a little about it, wanting her nonchalant laughter to pour over me like salve, a soothing encouragement, compassion from a mother to her daughter regarding this bond we share, this thing called motherhood.  I would ask her many, many questions.   So I slip back into the recesses of my imagination and pick up the phone.  I dial her number, listen to rings, and pauses between rings, and hear myself breathing on the receiver.  And then it's her voice.  Her warm and so familiar voice that is trekked into my most primitive memories.  No stand-in or surrogate will work today.  Some days I'm a mom.  Today I'm a daughter needing one.  Today, like countless others over nearly five years, I just miss my mommy.