Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Sad (07/26/07)
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TITLE: Granddaddy | Previous Challenge Entry
By Amanda Davis
08/01/07 -
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"Where, Hoyal?" She draws his name out into two long syllables. "I don't see a man."
"There. By the front door," he points "that man with the white clothes."
"Look at that!" He persists, "I wonder how he gets his clothes so white?" He continues to remark excitedly, to no one in particular, about the clean state of the man's attire. This is the most excitement he's displayed for what seems to have been decades.
Corine looks into the empty space by the front door... nothing. She stares out beyond the sagging aluminum frame of the glass door to the sun baked yard beyond. There is no man in the yard either. Her brother shrugs and shakes his head at her unasked question; he doesn't see anyone.
A Braves baseball game blares from the opposite corner of the elongated living room. Rabbit ears hoist their shiny, crinkled pennant proudly above the imitation wood grain of the aging television set. The Braves have white uniforms, but he's not looking toward that side of the room.
A pair of confused expressions stares questioningly at Hoyal from opposite ends of the faded yellow sofa. He is oblivious to the unasked questions from his wife and her brother; so completely absorbed is he with the man by the front door. A cheer erupts from fans of the home team. Excited "gamespeak" is rolling off the sports commentator's tongue in a flurry yet it fails to divert his attention.
He continues to stare for many moments more before tearing his gaze from the front door.
"Corine, I'm tired now."
She hops up from the sofa to help him move from the green vinyl recliner to a hospital bed parked along the back wall of the living room. She is careful to keep his arms supported on top of hers. The ripped, age-hardened edges of vinyl tear his skin so easily nowadays. She's duck taped most of the holes, but a new one started about a month ago and she hasn't gotten around to fixing it.
Hasn't she been telling everyone for years that he has Alzheimer's? She ignores the lancing pain down her spine as she absorbs the additional burden of her aged husband's weight. He used to be such a big man.
He makes the half dozen or so shuffling steps to the bed with the assistance of his wife of almost fifty years. Her fussing and worrying drive him to distraction at times, but he knows it's born from the love she bears him.
As he's leaning forward to allow her to raise the head of the bed higher, he notices that the man is no longer by the door. He's momentarily seized with a sense of panic and loss so profound he almost chokes on it. A rose printed, polyester clad form is blocking his view. Equal parts of weakness and propriety stall his hand from shoving the obstruction from his line of sight. Where is he?!?!
She moves back from his side and asks one of the litany of questions she daily poses regarding his well-being. This once he offers no platitude to appease her. He discovers the man's moved to stand at the end of the bed. Hoyal doesn't ask the man to move so he can see the ballgame.
The air conditioner in the window wheezes and chugs, competing for attention with the blaring television.
Hoyal doesn't get up again.
He loses interest in the score and never asks who won the game.
8
I think the Father couldn't bear to see Hoyal's infirmity any longer. He wanted his child home so he sent a traveling companion to make the journey a pleasant one. Hoyal lingered a few days for distant family to make the trek to the country to bid him farewell and Godspeed.
Around his bed were gathered when he drew his last breath and released his spirit to follow the man in the white clothes: his wife and her brother; his children; his brothers and their wives... and my husband.
I stayed with him until shortly before he departed this life, but I am a coward. I couldn't bear to see him draw his last breath. I sat in my little house down the hill and cried hot, fat tears of soul wrenching grief.
It's been three years and I still cry when I think of him... my Granddaddy Hoyal.
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You switched POV several times; sometimes we're in Hoyals' head, and sometimes in Corinne's. That was mildly disorienting.
I really like the setting that you established, and the character development here. Well done.