Bookends to Generations

It sat there for days. On my desk in front of the window. The window that looks out onto the street I’ve spent my entire life on. Brick homes, tall and thin, neatly stacked next to one another as they form lines down both sides of the street. Easy enough to see why they are called row houses, it doesn’t take much creativity to get from here to there. I found the notebook the day after his funeral. Although it was plainly placed within the top of his desk, so in a way, the notebook found me. For it wasn’t hidden, only waiting for me to arrive.

His desk was old and worn, much like him. Wooden and the color of honey, it sat in front of his window overlooking the street he’d spent most of his life on. Sitting at opposite ends of life, we were two bookends to generations, and yet, we were more alike than not. And certainly more alike than those who fell between us. The top of his desk lifted like the cover of a book thanks to the hinges that connected it at the back. Inside were rows of pencils that ran from one color to the next while touching every shade in between. Next to them, sat short stacks of paper. And it was on one of these stacks of paper that I found the black notebook. Opening the desk to see it there staring back at me, tears began to warm and wet my cheeks. An involuntary response to the gift that came in the form of a surprise.

Taking the notebook into my hands, my fingers slid under the black elastic band that bound it. Were they ready to see what was inside? Quite the question, isn’t it? Turned out, that at that moment, they weren’t and neither was I. Looking out through his window, I could see that it was raining and I decided that I didn’t want to open it while it felt like everything, even the sky, was still grieving. So I took that sweet notebook and carried it from his desk to mine.

He never told us that he was sick. Nobody knew but him. We found out days before he died, and that was only after he had been rushed to the hospital. There we learned that cancer had taken root in his lungs and that it had been roaming freely throughout the rest of his body. The truth was that it had finally taken over and there was no time left. I wanted to be angry about it, but who am I to decide how someone lives their life? And at the age of eighty-two, I’m quite certain he wouldn’t have listened anyway. My grandfather liked to move in his own way and in his own time. I learned that at a young age. Because while the rest of my family learned how to sign the second they realized I was unable to hear, my grandfather decided that he would have his own way of communicating with me.

It started when I was little. With me on his lap and a tiny flipbook in his hands, he spoke to me for the first time. Running his thumb along the edges of each page, like magic, I saw a cartoon come to life right before my very eyes. It was a story of a little girl who turned into a superhero. She had long dark hair that she wore in two braids, just like me. She wore an orange shirt that was covered in colorful starfish, just like me. And she was deaf, just like me. I carried that first flipbook with me everywhere I went, and when I felt alone or sad, I'd flip through pages to watch myself turn into a superhero.

Her story grew as I did, my grandfather moving from homemade flipbooks to homemade comic books. The chronicles of a young girl whose disability was her superpower. Free from the noise of the outside world, she heard only herself. Clarity. She followed it wherever it led her, which in the comic books my grandfather drew, was everywhere. And each place brought to her an adventure.

Those stories made me wonder about the world. What did the sun feel like in New Zealand? How did the air smell just before it rained in Mongolia? How many stars could you really see when sitting under the open skies in the desert of Arizona? It was a curiosity that he and I shared along with dreams of finding the answers for ourselves. So finding this black notebook, after he died was a bittersweet moment. Knowing him, I knew what was within the pages. The end to the adventures I’d spent my entire life living through.

It took three days after finding the notebook for the rain to stop. It wasn’t that the sky had been grieving, but that it was April in Pittsburgh. I had only used the rain as an excuse to avoid the moment. But even nature seemed to be on his side that day, so slowly I slid the elastic band from around the notebook. Opening the cover, my eyes landed on the first page. Details mattered for us and I knew to be attentive.

In case of loss, please return to: Zoe would never lose this notebook. So if you are reading this and you are not Zoe, I can only assume that you’ve stolen it. You should know that a dead man has written these words. Yes, you are dealing with a ghost. And we ghosts don’t like thieves.

As a reward: $ A lifetime of sleepless nights.

He always had the best sense of humor. It felt good to remember him that way. Funny. Smart. Full of life. Holding the spine of the notebook in my left hand, I collected the pages in my right. Flipping through them front to back, the magic of the first flipbook found me in the pages of his last. My superhero character in small form floated through the pages. Each page a different place. She appeared around the top of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, then under the Itsukushima Shrine in Japan, and then again, this time on the steps of Teotihuacan. He had drawn a different destination on every left page of the notebook but had left every right page blank. I knew there had to be a reason, so I flipped through the pages again and again as I tried to figure it out. Only when I was ready to give up, did I realize he’d left a note on the back of the last page:

My Dearest Zoe,

I know that this is probably very hard for you. Big changes, losses like these, are some of life’s toughest moments. But there are lessons to be learned and gifts to be received in these very same moments and I want to share both of those with you.

First, the lesson. When I was a bit younger than you, around sixteen or so, I had dreams of being an artist. Traveling the world and letting my hands tell the story of what I’d seen through the art I’d create. But I chose to listen to those around me instead of myself, and by eighteen I’d settled for responsibility instead of dreams, leaving me with a lifetime spent exploring nothing more than the coal mines that line the Monongahela River. The fears of others have a way of becoming our own if we aren’t careful. Do not make this same mistake. I know that your parents aren’t trying to keep you small, only safe. But those two often work together, hard to have one without the other. My dear, I know that you are just like me and that you want nothing more than to see and experience the world beyond this small city. And I’m telling you to go.

That brings us to the matter of the gift. In the pocket of the back cover of this notebook, you’ll find the combination to the safe in my basement just under the stairs. Inside of the safe is $20,000 and every bit of it is for you. It isn’t enough to help you travel the world forever, but it is enough to get you started. And I know that you’ll figure out how to keep going. My only request is that you take this notebook with you. As you can see, I’ve drawn destinations and landmarks for places all around the world. Get out there and go see them for yourself. But as you do, add your experience of each on the blank pages that I’ve left for you. This will be our way of seeing it all together.

With all my love,

Pap

That night I booked my first flight, I’d leave for Mexico City in two days. Just enough time to get my things together and get out of town before my parents could stop me. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t understand that not everyone runs to escape, some run to feel alive.