I Saw Them Today

I saw them today.
I was taking a break from my chores and had finally decided it was time to officially close the pool for the winter. It had been weighing on my mind. I'd even contemplated hiring someone to do it. My wife had been on me about getting it done, but I wanted to gain some confidence in the procedure myself, so I decided to man up and tackle it.
The first step was lowering the water level, and that was taking some time. While I waited for the pump to do its work, I pulled a chair from the patio furniture into the shade beside the back door and sat down.
Maybe I'd scroll mindlessly through my phone, chuckle at a funny video or two, or look again at the pictures my best friend and his new wife had posted from their trip. It's interesting how good people look when they're happy. Their tans didn't hurt either. Marriage and happiness looked good on them, and I was happy for them. It warmed my heart.
But this isn't a story about any of those things.
I'd only been sitting there a few minutes when the ten-minute timer on my phone went off. It wasn't startling so much as annoying. I was monitoring the pool as it drained, trying to lower the water enough to make it safe for winter without draining too much.
So I dragged myself out of my comfortable patch of shade and walked the whole twenty feet to the pool.
The water level looked fine. I skimmed a few leaves from the surface. I'd seen enough disgusting pools in the “YouTube University” videos I'd watched while learning how to winterize ours, and I had no intention of opening the pool next spring to find one of those swampy messes waiting for me.
Satisfied, I walked back to my chair.
A noise startled me. For a moment I thought my son had returned home. I still had my AirPods in and was listening to a song that reminded me of my past. I can't remember the title now, only that there was something in the lyrics about love and times gone by.
I pulled my attention away from the music and listened.
It was my neighbor on the other side of the fence, hammering away at something in his garden shed. The shed had arrived earlier that spring, appearing one day while we were all at work. Dark brown siding, lighter brown trim, an honest attempt to match his house I suppose. I'll give him that.
He was probably putting up shelves or hooks for his yard tools. Whatever he was doing, I decided it was none of my concern and turned my attention back to my phone.
Then I saw them.
It couldn't have lasted more than a couple of seconds.
But in those seconds, a lifetime rushed through me.
For just a moment, I was there again. A child. Summers with my grandparents. Old photographs. Places I hadn't thought about in years. Moments I'd forgotten I remembered.
My heart raced.
And I smiled.
There are probably several things that had to come together just right for that moment to happen.
I was tired. I'd spent the day closing the pool, cleaning filters, scrubbing muck and silt from pump parts, inspecting everything and putting it away for winter. Earlier that morning I'd finished a 4.5 mile hike over some rugged terrain. My body was worn out, but I was sitting there in the shade, I was relaxed.
My son would be home soon. I'd sent him for pool antifreeze, and he'd texted to ask if I wanted something to eat. Of course I did. It was nearly one o'clock, and all I'd had was half a cup of coffee and some type of energy bar.
The music had quieted my mind. The shade was cool. The chair was comfortable.
My shoes and socks were soaking wet from the pool work, and I remember thinking I should take them off. But there was still work to do. No sense putting on dry shoes just to get another pair wet.
And then there was the door.
The back door of our home stood halfway open. It's a simple glass-and-steel-frame door, dark brown on the outside to match the brick of the house and light cream on the inside to complement the walls and trim.
I glanced toward the glass.
And out of the corner of my eye, I saw my grandpa and grandma.
Only for a moment.
Their faces were so clear!
My grandmother's pronounced, straight nose.
The chin and brow of my rugged old Grandpa Jack.
I'd been thinking about them that day without really realizing how much. On my morning hike, I'd passed a tractor sitting next to a new section of trail, and the smell of oil and grease had taken me somewhere else entirely. Later, the aroma of food cooking somewhere in the neighborhood had done the same.
Grandpa was a mechanic. He also worked construction, building and grading roads throughout southern Missouri, roads people still travel today.
I remember sitting on his lap in the cab of one of his big machines. Maybe it was a road grader. Maybe a bulldozer. I can't remember anymore. But I remember the smell. Diesel fuel. Hydraulic fluid. Oil. Grease. Fifty years later, I would know that smell anywhere.
Grandpa was also a rock hound, a lover of minerals and stones of every kind, and a founding member of the gem and mineral club in the little town where he and Grandma lived.
Grandma Edith's world had its own smells. Fresh cinnamon rolls. Molasses cookies. Meat and potatoes. Fried okra. Morel mushrooms. Green beans.
I can't remember a time when she wasn't making something wonderful in the kitchen. And when she wasn't cooking the next best meal you'd ever eaten, she might be tending the garden, washing clothes or sitting down for a game of cards with family and friends.
All of that came back to me in a couple of seconds. Because what I had seen in the glass wasn't actually my grandparents.
It was me.
The half-open door had caught my reflection, a man sitting in a patio chair in the shade, tired from his day's work, wet shoes still on his feet, music playing in his ears. But for that instant, I didn't see myself.
I saw them.
There was Grandpa's face in mine. Grandma was there too. Not perfectly, and not literally, but unmistakably.
And suddenly the glass was reflecting more than the man sitting in that chair.
It was reflecting the people who helped make him.
Their love. Their commitment to each other. Their partnership. Their way of working, living and caring for the people around them. I realized how much of what they had given me was still here.
That's no slight to my parents. It's simply one of the strange truths of a life: we don't always know which people will leave the deepest marks on us.
A grandparent. A mother or father. A best friend. A coworker. A lost love.
Sometimes we don't recognize those marks until years later.
Sometimes it takes a reflection.
I saw my grandparents today.
I see them other days too.
I see them in my dad and his brother. I see them in the faces of my son and daughter. I see them in my nieces and nephew. And I see Grandma especially in my sister, quiet and confident, loving and true.
And now, apparently, I see them in myself.
It's funny how that happens, but I'm sure glad it does.
I'm sure glad it does.

Scott Stewart
October 19, 2024