In Between Times by Barbara H.

It seemed to her they were just two aged and aging people when none of the kids were around.

Most weekends the house was full of visiting grandchildren of different ages and their activities would generally pull the couple into (her) grocery store diving and running home to plan meals for the visiters and (him) gassing up old Blue, the affectionate name he had given his Ford truck, in case gramma and the kids had to run to the mall or to Youngs for frozen custard treats in the evening.

She would bustle (amid kid's laughter) and pap would sit in his chair (the most comfortable place since his health began to decline a few years ago) and listen and sigh in relief that the sounds were none he had to join in with any sort of real energy except to be there for hugs. What he worked toward all his life he was now experiencing in his retirement. Gramma, on the other hand, was still moving with her own purpose (trying to keep him AND herself healthy)  and toward that end kept a running connection (with what went on in her memory) to her every day life.

Pap's life was being challenged by his smoking habit and gramma (no matter how dramatic her warnings they fell on deaf ears) was at a loss as how to help him any further. She had already lost one husband to lung disease and had seen the drastic results in the death of other family members and friends. She knew the step by step disintegration of the disease process and saw clearly the final picture. Pap, on the other hand, would not listen and accused her of not loving him anymore because of her anger with the situation.

Each weekend when the children arrived Pap would lessen his smoking (the kids had all presented him with their schools' literature handouts regarding the Don't Smoke, Don't Do Drugs program) because they believed he was actually trying to quit and he didn't want the hassle of hearing more warnings and (even more importantly) didn't want to feel their disappointment of him.

Gramma was glad that their influence on him lessened his smoking during the weekends but still had to face the days during the week and how to live with her anger while still trying to  show her love for him. The effort was beginning to take its toll. The last time she measured her blood pressure (at the drugstore while picking up pap's medicines) it registered 174 over 75 which was high for her. She was using her asthma puffer more often because  of the emotional turmoil.

Their lives had become almost separate within their marriage except when the weekends came and the kids arrived. Gramma had almost lost sight of what their lives had been based upon. Until the rock reminded her once again.

They'd had an argument after the last grocery shopping trip and it had continued until just before the kids had arrived.  Pap had been sitting in his chair when gramma came into the livingroom armed with a list and her shoulder purse and had exclaimed, "I'm ready to go!"  He, on the other hand was not, and had just settled for his evening nap. She would have readily gone by herself but had refused to include the purchase of cigarettes for him in her shopping and he stubbornly argued that they shouldn't take separate vehicles because of the cost of gas and they should go together.

"Oh, I was planning on later, " he said. "I'm not ready and I wanted to take a shower before going anywhere."  "Well I have to bake Morgan's birthday cake this evening and I'm out of eggs so we may as well go now or there won't be time this evening, please lets go now!"

He was throroughly annoyed because he was faced with going when he hadn't planned  in addition to  the fact he could not smoke in the truck on the way to the store so he was full of anger while shopping and on the trip home.

He ushered her over to the cashier and told her to check out the groceries while he went to the service desk to purchase his cigarettes and out to the parking lot to have his smoke. "I'll see you there," he said. So he did and she did.

On the way home he told her how a woman waited for him to unload their groceries and then returned to do her own shopping with the empty cart they had used. "That's the first time someone ever reciprocated," he said. "I always am polite and take empty carts back." "I realize that," she answered and silently thought that it would be wonderful if he would consider his own worth as much as he considered the worth of others.

She guessed she should have spoken those words because when he looked at her, he asked, "What are you thinking now? Everything I do is wrong to you isn't it?"

"No, everything you do is not wrong, but what you do is mostly based on your whim and I never know how to take you anymore or what you will say!"

So after he told her she was totally unreasonable and she could not expect him to talk to her the rest of the weekend she resigned herself to the situation and set her mind on the things she had left to do. On arriving home the groceries were put away pap pushed back into his easy chair and she baked the birthday cake,

Later during the weekend, there was spaghetti and meatballs served (she made sure her husband was served first in spite of the silent treatment, she entrusted him to light the birthday candles and to go upstairs and retrieve his camera to provide shots of the family.) The silence was broken when he began his strong rendition of the happy birthday song for Morgan. (Here she was twelve years old already  and it seemed like yesterday when they had all welcomed her home from the hospital.)

She was in the bedroom when her grandson came in to ask if he could borrow a paintbrush for his latest art project and he spotted the rock. "What's this gramma," he asked and picked up the heart shaped rock that sat on her end table. "First time I ever saw this before."

She told him how, years ago in between the time she left for work one morning and had returned, Pap had found the large stone, painted the words "Bill loves you like a rock," and put it on the table at her side of the bed for her to find. "He was telling me he loved me C.J." she said. "Just like we both love you and all your cousins."

"Oh," he answered. 'He actually stopped from work to do that for you huh? That was pretty nice Gramma."

"Yes and he is pretty nice," she replied as her  heart suddenly found a more strengthened resolve to deal with the in between times when the kids weren't around.

On Sunday evening after the family had returned to their own homes and lives she was determined to begin anew in her support of her husband.

She sat down and poured her heart out to him in a letter with words that were not in any way negative but began anew to show him how much she truly cared. She remembered his telling her how he depended upon her to stick it out with him through thick and thin and how she, of all people, should not be against him especially when he was his weakest. (In not being able to quit his smoking habit.)

She placed the letter on the kitchen table and on it the rock with his lovely message. She hoped when he saw it (after waking from his chair nap) that he too would remember those in between times when the kids weren't here when he professed how he loved her and maybe that in turn would help him love himself a little more.

Time would tell. Time would tell.

07.17.2009 Barbara H.