Herbert

When I recall my grandfather, it is an image.

Him sitting, hunched forward, elbows on knees on a kitchen chair.

One long, skinny leg dangling over the other. His foot keeping time to a silent rhythm.

A can of xxxx on the laminate kitchen table beside him that he swigs from every few minutes or so.

His cigarette hanging loosely between his bony, yellowed fingers. The smoke spiraling around his weathered, sunburnt face.

A face softened slightly by a tuft of white hair atop a high forehead. A genetic feature that he passed down to all of his male offspring including his male grandchildren.

He would tell me stories about his time on the railways and the men he worked with.

He'd share with me his hard learnt philosophies on survival and life.

I was four years old and to this day I've never loved a man more than I loved my grandfather.

My mother told me years later that he was a raging alcoholic and that he had a mean way about him.

I never believed her. My mother was incapable of connecting to anyone other than by codependence.

We had fled Malaysia with the aid of my aunt. Escaping my stepfather who was stationed there during the communist uprisings.

She had married him out of desperation to provide me with a father at a time when being a single mother was viewed with condemnation.

My grandparents owned a disused diary farm in outback North Queensland Australia.

It was the perfect environment for a four year old boy in need of shelter from two guardians who were not able to put aside their own self indulgences in order to raise a kid.

Some chickens, a couple of horses, abandoned cars and several dilapidated sheds.

I spent my days exploring, Seeking out lizards and snakes, feeding the kangaroos at dusk, helping my grandma with the washing and of course, talking to my grandfather when he arrived home after work.

My mother was working 60 miles away in the city as a nurse. She would come home for the weekends, though her presence was always underwhelming.

About this time, you may be starting to get the idea that her and my relationship was less than ideal.......your observations are correct.

Even as a four year old I felt alienated by her special brand of emotional detachment.

I realized much later, as her senses started to leave, that the nature of her brokenness blocked any form of connection.

It was a Sunday afternoon. For some reason I remember that.

My grandfather was holding me in his arms in my bedroom.

We were watching out of the window at the figure making it's way up the long dusty driveway to the house.

As he got closer I could see it was my stepfather. I began to cry.

As he got closer still I saw he was holding a bouquet of flowers and a teddy bear.

My grandfather started to cry as he held me tighter.

I pleaded with him to make my stepfather go away,

I knew he couldn't though. I knew the ways of my mother.

We seemed to both understand that our relationship would forever change and our grief was a manifestation of that.

We never again talked at the kitchen table. We never again spent significant time together.

I was taken to Sydney to witness the train wreck of my parents marriage.

They separated 10 years later.

He died 5 years after that.

So many miles away and 15 years later, I didn't even shed a tear.

Yet today I can't seem to stem the flow.

Strange how these things work......