Tales of Grandchildren 

Dead People: “Oma, there’s dead people under those rocks, you know.”

I glance over my shoulder to see what Satchel is talking about. My four-year-old grandson is commenting from his car seat about the small cemetery to our left on East Napa Street.

“I know, that’s where they put our bodies when we die.”

“What do they do with the heads?” he asks.

“Well, when we die, we don’t need our bodies anymore,” I say, elaborating with a spiritual conversation about bodies, souls and death.

When I finish, he says, “Yeah, but what do they do with the heads?”

As I attempt to expound further, he interrupts: “Oma! The car is filled with sparkle fairies!”

I’m wearing a Brazilian rhinestone bracelet my sister Liz gave me, and the sun is bouncing off the facets, casting hundreds of tiny, brilliant refractions around the car’s interior.

He asks in wonder, “Can you see them?”

“I can, darling, I can.”

Then he tilts his head forward, “Oma, can you see the Apple Fairy on the top of my head?”

I peer in the rearview mirror, slip into his world of magic, and tell him, “Of course. How long has she been there?”

“About a week!”

“A week! That’s amazing. You are a lucky boy.”

Days later, when I told my friend Elaina the cemetery story, I didn’t understand his question until she laughed and said, “Well, you told him what they did with the bodies. He wanted to know what they did with the heads.” I haven’t gotten back to him on that one.

Heaven: This one is written in 2019 by Busha, Satchel’s maternal grandmother, about his younger cousin. 

She writes, “My four-year-old granddaughter, Mare, who has been experiencing a fear of death the past couple of months, shared the following on the 96th birthday of my mother, now six years in heaven:

‘I’m happy that all my family that is dead is in heaven. And that we all go to heaven and we will all be together again. And I’m happy that their blood is in my body. Because when they are in heaven their sparkles are in my blood and they love me. And then we’re all together and then we will be new babies again. I’m glad I get to be a new baby again because I don’t want to be dead for a whole weekend.’”

Time Wounds All Heels: Satchel doesn’t call him Grandpa, he calls him Bob. It is the summer of 2007, my ex has our grandson over for a swim, and we are tag-teaming him for the weekend. Bob lives a few blocks from me and the two of them were playing cowboys and Indians – or maybe it was cops and robbers – while waiting for me in Bob’s front yard. As I pull up to the curb, I see Satch has proudly tied his grandfather to a tree, a large rope encircling his seated torso several times, securely pinning his arms to his sides. The grandboy isn’t old enough to tie a square knot or two half-hitches, but there’s enough rope wrapped around Bobalooie that he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. 

“Hi Oma!” Satch grabs his little backpack and chirps, “Bye, Bob,” as he hops into the back of my car and into his car seat. I assess the opportunity, which is just too sweet to pass up: Give Bob the Queen’s wave and merrily press the accelerator as Satchel signals farewell out the open window. I figure wife number four will eventually wonder where he is and set him free. Or not.