They met on a San Francisco street. He was on shore leave during WWII with some of his Navy buddies, and she was out for a night on the town with her girlfriends. She dropped her handbag. He picked it up. That’s the end of the story, and the beginning of the story. In that moment their lives ended, and a new life began. .jpg)
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My grandparents’ beginnings could not have been any more different… She was a trained dancer, an artist and a beauty queen. Every six months a seamstress came to the house to take her measurements so that season’s wardrobe could be made. While my Grandfather… He was keeping the fire burning, at the bootlegging distillery that his family had hidden in the woods of Kentucky. Then he jumped on a train at fourteen and headed west to California. At sixteen, he lied about his age and joined the Navy. Two different worlds. But those differences never amounted to much. Everything changed when he picked up that handbag.
I came along much later, when their life together was already strongly established. She had already learned to cook… (not a small feat when you grew up with servants who did all the cooking for you.) The two of them had traveled, crashed parties in Mexico and danced all night with Mexican dignitaries, stomped grapes in California with Portuguese immigrants, broke horses, rode in rodeos, spread oil paint on hundreds of canvases, and raised two children together by the time I came into the picture. As a child I enjoyed their love and laughter, not realizing how special they truly were. They were just my grandparents.
We would get snowed in at their house in the foothills of Denver, and have to eat crackers and cans of sardines by candlelight when the power went out. We visited New York when I was eleven, and I had my heart set on peeking through the windows of the crown at the top of the Statue of Liberty’s head. My grandmother walked up hundreds of steps holding my hand and urging me on. My Grandfather rarely caught a fish when he took me fishing at the lakes down the dusty dirt road from their house… How could he, when he spent all of his time untangling my line? But he taught me how to be patient. To sit very still with my finger on the delicate line, the wind blowing ripples across the water and my hair across my face. How to tell the difference between my hook merely bumping over a rock at the bottom, and the feel of a trout really taking hold. Once, when I was a sophomore in college, I called them the week before my summer break. I announced that we should take a trip. Just the three of us. Their only question was to ask where I wanted to go… They packed up their trailer and we drove to New Mexico as soon as I finished my finals.
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I began to comprehend what a rare treasure I had in my grandparents. As individuals they were wonderful people. But it was really how they worked together as a couple that strikes me the most now. When you grow up with that kind of perfectly choreographed companionship, you don’t question it. It just… is. I never thought twice about the way they always held hands. Always. In the living room, at a crowded party, in a parking lot. They were together. Always. The way they filled in the blanks of the stories they would tell together. Tales of love and war, sunken ships, bootlegging and gold nuggets along roadsides. The way she would snuggle under the crook of his arm and say, “Hi there, Sailor!” and giggle like a teenager. How he always remembered to bring a sweater for her when they left the house, because he knew she would get cold. Or how he washed the dishes every night after she made dinner. Then they would dance barefoot in the kitchen, the dishtowel still in his hand. .jpg)
They were two distinct stars. Blazing, brilliant and beautiful in their own right. But together they made their own unique constellation. Just they two… Dancing together in orbit.
My Grandfather passed away last year. I took these photos of the two of them when I was there to celebrate their 90th birthdays. Just three short months later he was gone. These were some of the last photographs taken of them together. I honestly don’t know how she does it now. There is an empty space there that used to hold so much. It hurts my gut to even think about it. But she is strong. So, so very strong. Like I said, she is her own brilliant shining star. But I think he is still with her, still holding her hand. Still keeping her in orbit with the gravitational pull of his love. A love that cannot ever die. Still holding her hand. Still dancing.
written in 2014, as seen in Beyond the Wanderlust Magazine, Edition VI
