What Grandad Jack Built

I got to the farm close to 4:00pm, there were cars parked on the lawn, the driveway, all the way down the country road.

The sky had started to blush and the cockatoos had begun their end-of-day pilgrimage across the bush. I parked at the end of the country road, Grandad had always been popular, it was no surprises that today of all days would be as busy as a funfair.

But it wasn’t a funfair, it was a living funeral.

I love the ideas of them, being able to say goodbye to everyone you had ever loved when you know your time is coming, but I hated the idea of this one being for Grandad. It was Mum’s idea to hold one for Grandad, the idea was that you sit in a circle and shower the dying individual with love, memories and wishes for the next celestial journey…it wasn’t the concept that scared me, it was living in a world without Grandpa Jack that did.

I walked up the driveway, to his dreamy cottage that was nestled between two pockets of bush and in front of the squiggly gum barn. That’s what he had named it, because it was made out of squiggly gum wood from his land. 50 years he had shared this home with Grandma, he built it with his own hands, from wood and stone, clay bricks and timber boards, every glass panel, every latch, every nail was placed by Grandad Jack’s hands.

If I passed anybody, I would just smile a small smile and nod my head and keep walking, I didn’t have any words to talk to them with, my tongue felt like it was stuck to my teeth. As I walked up the porch steps, the front door opened and my mum burst over the threshold, a multicoloured fire, she was dressed in a rainbow flowing hippie dress, a yellow bandana controlling her frizzy, once dreadlocked hair.

‘My sunshine, you made it!’

‘Hi, Mum’, I croaked, my throat was pressed hard against her shoulder, she had always had the tightest hugs.

‘I didn’t think you’d be here after Thursday night’. Thursday night consisted of three bottles of wine, a cold bath and a, ‘I’m not fucking coming, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t….’

‘I know, I’m sorry…I’m here now.’

‘Everybody is here, we are going to start soon…’ She released me and ushered me across the threshold.

The guests looked like a sea of tanned, leathery, old skin and the coloured fabric section in the craft store, but on psychedelics. I felt out of place in my navy blue dress. No faces were familiar to me, they all looked obscure, the whole atmosphere was infected with incense and pillows and pot. I felt their hands all over me, wishing me ‘hello’ and ‘Ella! It’s been too long!’ To be honest I didn’t hear any of them because there was my Grandma, dressed like Stevie Nicks, in a shawl and a long lace dress, and next to her was Grandad. Today he wore a linen shirt, there was no pipe in his mouth so his lips looked bare, and a tartan blanket over his knees.

My heart could have burst.

I had seen him two days ago, they say time moves quickly but cancer moves faster, and I had no choice but to believe it. He looked so frail and skinny in that chair, his glasses magnified his grey eyes, and his beard looked thin…even his big hands looked small.

My stomach felt like it had been thrust into my throat; I felt sick and grief started to pour out of my eyes. My feet moved before I could stop them, and I was running through the hippie sea to the barn that Grandad Jack built.

****

It was a temple of its own right, with soaring ceilings and a great tower of hay bails at the ends of the cathedral-like space; a farmers crucifix. Grandad had always worked so hard for his….

‘Hay bails! Look Ella! We have enough to feed the horses for a whole year!’ Grandad was at the wheel of the green rusty tractor, his mouth open in awe as he looked over the field of fresh, sun dried hay. I sucked on my honey lollipop from Grandma, my legs were hanging over the leather tractor sear, my gumboots too heavy for my seven year old feet.

‘It looks so golden Grandad’ and it did, the hay was so fresh the sun winked and glistened off it and hurt my young eyes, ‘Its so beautiful Grandad Jack!’

‘No,’ He turned to smile at me, his thick beard twitching, ‘You are.’

I walked through the barn, the empty horse stalls, once full of mares and their cults, they had all been sold when Grandad became sick. We had joked that it was the hardest part of having cancer was needing to sell his horses, but deep down I really believe it was. He adored every part of his horses, especially bringing,

‘A new one into the world!’ Grandad huffed as he wiped away the embryonic sack covering the foals back legs. It’s head and body were still inside the mother, and I was afraid of how much pain the mare was in.

‘Come on El,’ Grandad had the foal by the fetlocks, ‘Give your old man a hand…’

I knelt beside him, ‘Now, you’re going to put your hands in there and help pry the stubborn lad out, while I pull, mum’s had enough now, she’s tired and won’t go on much longer, come on El…’ So I did, I slid my hands in and pulled with at Grandad’s command…after three mighty heaves out the foal slid, straight into Grandad’s lap.

‘Look at that El! A new life in the world!’ His smile was priceless, he was so happy the smoke from his pipe seemed to fill the whole barn with joy.

Splinters tickled my finger tips as I ran them along the raw gum stall doors, but I didn’t care because his healthy hands had once sanded this timber. A splinter from this wood would be a blessing to my skin…It fell to the ground before I saw it. A handcrafted wooden pipe lay at my feet, the pipe that made Grandpa whole but that I also blamed for his slow death. I picked it up, and put it straight between my lips…

‘A young man with tanned skin and full cheeks, with sun bleached white hair, green overalls and a straw hat, full of promise and vigour came to mind through the taste of stale tobacco and gum that tendered my tongue. From the age of 15 to the age of 81 he smoked that pipe, it was a part of him equal to his wife, his children, his body. His pipe had seen him to the harshest of winters and through the breaking of the wildest stallions, it was his after dinner love, his after sex love, his waiting for the children to be born love, his deep conversation love, his other half; that pipe.’

I felt as though I was sharing a kiss with the dead, and I suppose almost was. Growing up I was always fascinated with Grandad’s pipe.

‘Isn’t that mine?’ I felt a jolt down my spine, turning as fast as daylight to see a sickly small, crouched silhouette leaning on a cane.

‘Grandad…’ He hadn’t walked for weeks…I didn’t even think he could walk after the disease seeped into his bones.

‘Ella…you’re missing my party, alone in here.’ He slowly moved towards me, shuffling his slippers through the hay covered floor.

‘I know Grandad…’ My face screwed up, trying to stop my tears, to the point that I couldn’t get any words out… ‘I don’t want to…’

‘Say goodbye? It’s not that, it’s just see you later.’ Finishing my sentence for me, he placed a hand on my shoulder and I leant into his embrace, crying into his linen shirt.

‘It’s time El, it’s okay, I’ve done my time…as long as this barn is standing and that pipe is in your pocket, I’ll be around?’ I looked up at him and nodded, his grey eyes were all knowing and glistened, like he knew something that I did not.

‘Come on El, we can’t keep them waiting…’

The sky was blushing a deep red, and with his arms around my shoulders and his pipe in my pocket, we walked into his funeral together.