INSIDE THE TICKING MOMENTS OF A
PANDEMIC – III – EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 12, 2020, COLUMBUS, OHIO, USA, LINDA LEE
GREENE, AUTHOR & ARTIST
GREAT-GRANDPARENTS,
GRANDPARENTS, MOTHERS AND FATHERS
Of my early childhood, I recall quite
a lot, both great and small—little things such as the floral pattern of my
grandmother’s apron; the chewing-tobacco aroma of my grandfather’s breath; the
giggle of my Uncle “Neenie.” I remember big things, as well, such as the gnarled
old man, his cavernous eyes shadowed beneath a snow-white pair of shaggy, brush-like
eyebrows, whom from time to time nodded off on the davenport in the front room
of my grandparent’s farmhouse. Landon Howard Caplinger was his name, and he was
the father of my grandmother, a worn-out farmer and grieving widower.
Great-grandmother, Sally, his wife of over fifty years, had died when my mother
was in the early days of her pregnancy with me, and by all evidence, he mourned
her passing until his own death nine years later at the age of eighty-nine. It
was also one day before my ninth birthday.
My great-grandfather, Landon, was
the first old person I ever knew, and I recollect that I was always on guard
around him while he was alive—on guard so as not to disturb his sleep, but also
because I think I somehow feared I would catch what he had—that I would also
grow suddenly old if I failed to keep a very long and very safe distance
between him and me. Shielded behind the frame of the doorway between the
kitchen and front room, at every chance, I peeked around the edge of it and
studied the strange old man, scanning him from head to toe, rooting out his
secrets—secrets, I suppose, of what it was like to be such an ancient being.
Religion weaves through the
history of my family, but by the time of my childhood, church attendance was a
luxury they could no longer afford. Sundays on the farm were like all other
days. The cows still needed morning milking, the pigs slopped, the chickens fed,
and meals prepared for the many of us. Animals didn’t take out time to worship
God, nor did the members of my family whom were their busy caretakers. Even so,
there was a kind of reverence in the air of those Sundays, a softly-spoken
devotion among my grandparents, my parents, and my aunts and uncles. I hail
from a family of talkers, chatterboxes whose verbal excesses required of me to take
cover beneath tables and behind chairs and to listen, to observe, and to
examine their words for myself. No doubt my soul was rehearsing me even then
for my role as the chronicler of their story.
It was there in those times of
overhearing that I learned about another sad man, a man by the name of Jesus.
While all around my great-grandfather the house bustled with that activity and
chatter, out of the corner of my eye, I watched him half-prone on the
davenport, silent and sad. That old man added a kind of curious weight to my
childhood. I seemed to understand that he was the linchpin of my family, indeed
of my very existence, while at the same time he seemed to me to be of another
world. I think that deep down I had a feeling that Landon and Jesus were one
and the same.©
Image: Landon on the davenport
between my grandfather and grandmother, Adams County, Ohio, circa early-1950s.
Multi-award-winning author, Linda
Lee Greene’s books are available for purchase at Amazon.com.
