missing

“I step off the train / I'm walking down your street again / Past your door / But you don't 0live there anymore / It's years since you've been there / Now you've disappeared somewhere / Like outer space / You've found some better place / And I miss you / like the deserts miss the rain” - Everything But The Girl, “Missing”

I still have dreams about my Grandfather. Not often, but consistently. And when I do, they're anachronistic. I'll be living my life as it is today and my Grandfather will walk into the scene as if he hadn't passed on over six years ago. These dreams often take place at the house where I grew up (which has since been sold outside of the family). It's like when my mind gets an opportunity, it always takes me back there even if just for a moment. As if that place where I had always been is still where I'm supposed to be. Home base.

Whenever I have these dreams, they feel so real that it's normally quite a few moments after I wake up before I realize what's real and what's not. Not only did I have today another one of those dreams that mimicked reality. I had an odd anomaly of a moment in reality that mimicked a dream.

Our church visits a convalescent home in South Pasadena once every month. This is something I asked to do, but oddly enough, I always feel a bit averse to going. It is a bit assaulting on the senses to take in directly the ravages of age. Those who have aged, well and those who have aged badly. Normally in enough time, the compassion shows through and I come around when I get to find someone and talk to them.

The last person I talked to was an older Caucasian gentleman named Curtis. Wheelchair bound with both legs amputated, I decided before I left to stop and stoop down and introduce myself. Something about him would not let me pass him by. I found out that he had been a resident in the place for about 2 years, but hadn't stopped by to our one-hour church visit before.

“Please pardon me / But I'm longing to see / I hope you don't mind my staring / I don't mind / 'Cause your face looks so kind / And it's seldom you find someone so daring / You remind me of a friend of mine” - Rufus & Chaka Khan, “Please Pardon Me (You Remind Me Of A Friend)” (1974).

Generally, most white elderly men I see remind me of my grandfather. My papa was an African-American man, but it took him a lot of standing out in the sun to hold much pigment I can't remember much at all of what we said, but I think I mentioned something something about being glad to have met him. He said something to the effect of come back soon, but he said it with a sharp wit and a smile. As I had squat down talking to him, listening intently, I looked in his face, and it was almost like I was seeing Ralph Alexander Coston, Sr.

Suddenly, I was overcome with grief and had to dart out of the room so as not to cause a scene in front of the rest of the people who were there. I couldn't stop myself from crying as if I had just lost my Grandfather yesterday. That whole brief, brief interaction was too familiar and too odd, too inviting and too frightening. It just reminded me in such an intense way that six years later, I still miss Papa terribly. He was my grandfather, he was my dad, and he was one the best friends I've ever had. Once my grandmother passed, it was pretty much just us for the next ten years.

“...Back on the train / I ask why did I come again / Can I confess / I've been hanging around your old address? / And the years have proven / To offer nothing since you moved / You're long gone / But I can't move on / And I miss you / Like the deserts miss the rain”

I'm still not quite sure what to do with this. I remember being 10 years old and not really comprehending how to move on after my grandmother passed away. But after not too much time passed, I was a little more saddened that I was moving on quite well. Almost even forgetting what she looked like. And then I settled into a comfortable life that didn't require her presence to make sense.

Once my grandfather passed away, the first thing I did was retreat to back to my home in Los Angeles, where living day to day without seeing him made sense. So it's rather frustrating that after this much time has passed, I could still feel that type of grief that strongly with that little warning. It's a fault and a liability. Although at this stage, I'm more likely to just hope it doesn't happen for another six years than try and scratch and pick at it to find out why it's happening. I just want to be OK.