A Place Untouched

Growing up I would watch my grandfather play the accordion, intermixed with spitting his chewing tobacco into a can next to him. Not only did he have a good ear for music, thankfully he also had pretty good aim. When grandpa finished playing, he always broke out into a big toothy smile that sometimes revealed traces of tobacco leaves still lingering between his teeth. I have a picture of me somewhere being hugged by my grandpa where I am visibly pulling away, not wanting to be so close to the source of that nasty juice. When Grandpa finished playing, his laughter was so contagious it made everyone laugh. Years later, I realized that my dad punctuated the end of his playing with the same hearty laugh and self-conscious grin.

The last time I saw my dad, it was at the assisted living in Durand. The next day, Jim, my older brother by a year and a half, and Marianne, the caretaker from the assisted living, would be driving Dad across several states down to Indiana to a nursing home. It was a difficult decision to move him to a nursing home, but unfortunately Dad had become too much to handle at the assisted living.

We had a going away party for Dad, although he never quite understood what the occasion was. With a full audience including two of his four kids and spouses, several of his sisters, of which he had seven, and a few of my cousins who lived nearby who managed to get away for the day, Dad was able to play things on the accordion no one even knew he remembered.

Earlier, he had been unintelligible. He mumbled something about some contraption that he described more with his hands than his jumbled words. Every time he came over, he tried to describe this to me. It seemed to hold such significance to him, but I was clueless as to what he was even remotely talking about. I smiled back at him because he was so intent on me knowing about this thing. At some point he just looked at me and laughed, as though I was in on the joke. But, despite his inability to communicate verbally with people, there was much communicated in his smiling eyes that day. And, his love for humor was still razor sharp with his rapid fire banter with Marianne.

As he played for us, his fingers just moved of their own accord, playing from a place in his memory still untouched. At times he wouldn't get through the song all the way or the song would merge into a different song. But, the music he played was beautiful and lifted our spirits. I knew this would be the last time I would see my dad.

Just as he finished playing the accordion, he caught my eye and laughed just like Grandpa used to. The twinkle in his eye and the bounce of his laughter was akin to the one you might catch Santa doing if you caught him before he snuck back up the chimney. This memory was my own little present that would last the rest of my lifetime.