There were no more doctor visits for my brother and mama was fading from my mind. No matter how much I thought of how she was, she was fading. I don’t really know how long it had been since I saw her, but it seemed forever.
The week days were pretty much the same. Grandpa went to his job, daddy tried to sleep in late but lots of times I heard grandma say, get up son, these are your kids. I already raised mine.
Grandma took care of us kids most of the time. We had to sit on chairs and we weren’t allowed to make much noise. We could each play with a toy that we would pick out of the toy box and when we were done with that one; we could put that back and get a different toy.
My brother and I didn’t have many toys so none of these looked familiar. They had a worn look to them and once when I asked grandma about it she distinctly stated, those were your dad’s toys when he was your age!
I have to admit, it was sort of hard playing with toys, let alone just one toy, holding it on your lap. I usually played with a baby doll. Her hair was missing a little bit and she didn’t have any panties on. If I didn’t play with her, I glanced through the pictures of a book.
Brother never complained. He didn’t have to sit on a chair like I did. Grandma put him on the floor. She said it would make his back strong and I did see him pull himself up to the coffee table and couch several times. It wasn’t long at all that he was standing at the furniture for periods of time before he plopped down to the floor.
When Grandpa was home, he sometimes worked with my brother to help him begin walking. He would keep saying things like, “come on, you can do it. Those legs will help you.” It was funny to me how grandpa would wiggle his fingers at brother. He looked like he was doing a magic trick like I had seen on cartoon shows, but my brother was enticed by his fingers and in no time at all, brother took his first step.
Everyone in the room was clapping their hands and laughing that he was finally beginning to walk. Brother got into the atmosphere too because he would hold onto the coffee table and then start bouncing up and down giggling.
That was a glorious day in my family. I didn’t understand the boulder the adults had been carrying around their shoulders, but I could tell they were glad it had fallen off. Meals got better too. I somehow think that the doctors had said something to daddy that made them change what we ate. We had more fruits and we had hamburgers and of course we always had those hot dogs on Friday nights.
Daddy still wasn’t around that much and it seemed like he was getting home a little later than he used to. No one really said anything to him. I think he just expected his parents to watch over his kids so he could earn money and get back to life.
What did that mean, get back to his life? Did he think about mama like I did? Or did he forget her. Daddy told me one Saturday morning when we had one of those little talks, that he was trying to earn lots of money, so we could all move out and into a home of our own. I asked him how long that would be and he said a while. He told me that he didn’t like being alone and it wasn’t always good to be living with the folks when you are a grown man. I nodded at him as if I understood. I did know that I like the idea of what he said, a room of my own and I didn’t have to sit on a chair and a yard to play in.
To be continued….
Who I am 