Winter sun

Couples who are married for more than 50 years end up doing sweet things for each other. It’s not that the younger ones tied in the matrimonial bond do not do so. But somehow it seems more thoughtful when the elderly lot goes about it in a methodical manner. 

Take my own grandparents, for instance. Throughout my school years my feisty mother would take me to their house. Every summer! Sometimes for two months at a stretch. Why she inflicted this annual punishment on us I cannot say. It was supposed to be good for me to mingle with the extended family. It would teach us to be more considerate and accommodating, and the rest of it, she reasoned. But what it taught me instead was to miss my father, who would not accompany us, with deep longing. 

My dad and my mother’s dad were poles apart. If my father was funny, easygoing and affectionate, my grandfather was strict, unsmiling and a disciplinarian. Forget about laughing in his presence, we could not even talk loudly without him frowning at us. I could not understand why we were made to leave the warmth of my father’s house to go to that chill and claustrophobia of her father’s house.  

I belong to a generation where kids were not given any choices in the planning of vacations. Tickets were booked, bags were packed and we were on our way. But once there I would stubbornly refuse to conform. Every day, without fail, I complained to my grandmother about the absence of my father, and cried. It happened with so much regularity that she assigned a weeping time for me and gave me a small footstool on which to sit and weep. It was called the “missing Papa chair” and for nearly a decade, I made frequent use of it. The minute the clock struck three in the afternoon, I would drag it to the corner of the kitchen, and under the watchful eye of my grandma, sob my heart out. After a good half an hour of letting me vent my sorrow, she would appease me with mouthwatering sweets. 

As I grew older I noticed that though my grandparents were still very formal around one another, they were not completely immune to each other’s problems. My granny was more caring, definitely, but my grandpa would get visibly agitated if his wife was unwell. In the winter months her arthritis would act up when the sun did not shine for days. It would emerge for short periods in the middle of the afternoon and that is when he would start his car and place it under direct sunlight. 

Sometime later he would appear in the inner quarters announcing his presence with a lot of loud coughs. This gave my aunties a chance to cover their heads with a thin veil. He would then call out to my grandma and tell her that the car was ready. Ready for what, I wondered, because I never saw her going anywhere in it. 

Once I followed her and found her taking a nap in the backseat of the vehicle. It was warm and cozy inside. 

“Is it time?” my grandfather asked me. 

“For what?” I was surprised he was talking to me. 

“For you to get on the missing dad chair,” he deadpanned. 

“Ahem,” I said sheepishly. 

“I can place it on the front seat,” he assured.

“Thanks,” I muttered. 

“You are welcome,” he twinkled.