scenes from October: Grocery Edition

I wander through the store alone, hands gripping the handle of the cart. I am tentatively happy for the first time in weeks, fingers reaching slowly out into the sunshine of that feeling like the tendrils of a plant, growing.

I was thinking about Grandpa as I often do, wandering the aisles. I made selections and placed them in my cart, my thoughts tripping along behind me. It was a Saturday morning.

I found him in the detergent aisle, where the smell of varied soaps and cleansers is pungent, reassuring. He is old, taller than my Grandpa had been; somewhat stooped, as Grandpa had never been. He had a small crumpled list in his hand. He was puzzling over it, that much I could see, looking from the list to the shelf and then back again.

It was in one of these small glances (up, down… up down) that I caught his eye. I was staring, probably, the way I did now at older men, gathering information: was he older? Younger than Grandpa had been? Frail? Healthy? Why was he here, and my Grandpa not?

I smiled at him, and he reached out to me, gesturing with the list. “Hello,” he said, that easy conversational tone old men have. “Could you help me, do you think?”

“Of course,” I replied, drawn in. “Sure.” I moved closer, abandoning my cart.

“I’ve got this list here, my wife sent me,” he said. “We need some detergent, usually in an orange box. But she said fresh scent, and fresh is in a purple box…” He was bewildered, that much I could see. I looked at the looping, ornate writing on the list, a product of education in a different time. That writing made a simple list beautiful.

“Oh, here, I see,” I said. “This is just the wrong brand…” I led him down the shelf a bit and helped him with his selection. He smiled and patted my shoulder like old men do, thanked me and went along his way.

I was left alone in the aisle with tears in my eyes, watching his retreat. Remembering another day of shopping, another trip alone.

:::

I’d seen him from a distance; he didn’t see me yet. He was pushing a little mini-cart full of an odd assortment of items: two bags of chips, a 2-liter of Coke, a few heads of cauliflower, apples. I snuck up behind him, pulled my cart alongside his as he paused by a display of fruit.

“Oh, Bethy! Hi!” he said, smiling, pulling me in for a hug. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting groceries, Grandpa… what about you? What are you doing here?” He didn’t shop, my Grandpa. He’d wander along, sure, for the ride and to talk to people, but he never was the one behind the cart, making selections.

“Well, your Grandma sent me with a list, see… I found a few things of my own, though.” He gestured to the chips. “These were a good deal, you should get some!”

I laughed, knowing what Grandma would probably say when she found chips next to her cauliflower and apples. We chatted a few minutes longer and then parted ways, me to finish shopping and he to head home.

It was one of the last times I saw him, a memory that simaltaneously makes me smile and wish fervently for the ability to backtrack in time, to stay there with him longer. To chat in the produce for just a few minutes, invite him to lunch. I try to recall when exactly it was: it was fall, definitely, early fall I believe? He was alone, and so Grandma must have just had her surgery, to have sent him… My mind calculates frantically, trying to recall how many more times I’d see him, how many more funny little conversations, before he would leave this place.

:::

It doesn’t matter. He is still here, present in the fields and the sky, in the air as I walk along our quiet country road pushing a stroller. He is there in my daughter’s eyes, my dad’s hands, his memory reaching me from simple comments about old men’s kindnesses on my blog. I remember. I remember, and so he is never truly gone.