A thousand stories ago I was sitting in the doctorβs office mulling over my cancer diagnosis. Today the cancer is gone but a stark memory remains of the grim veil of mortality that briefly shrouded my life.
Left alone in the exam room I thought of my place in the ebb and flow of the billions of lives on this beautiful planet. Over the figurative hill in the arc of my life story, I wondered how many chapters were left to write.
Every minute 240 earthlings arrive and begin their story. And this spring, in Phoenix, another grandchild was written into existence in my daughterβs womb. I told my happy pregnant daughter, Sarah, and her happy husband, Joe, weβd be happy to take beautiful Emma, their 5-year old, off their hands for an entire week. Emmaβs text, written on her momβs phone, expressed her excitement about coming to spend a week with us: βdhjdXXffff77^@(@)@)J!!!!!β
Sheβs going to be a writer. I can sense it in my bones.The presence of a sprite would be restorative. I would have to become 5 years old in order to keep up with her. Stories from that period of my life seem curiously easier to recover these days.
They live in Phoenix so we met up in at the Krispy Kreme in Casa Grande for the handoff. Emma and I ran to each other and collided like asteroids.
βEmma! What do you think of the baby thatβs coming?β She grinned. Her motherβs belly had grown. I touched my daughterβs tummy with reverence. Every 60 seconds 106 souls exit existence. Here come the reinforcements.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, and time, my 89-year-old father-in-law, the Professor, was bedridden, recovering from a fall and irritated by his poor memory. He sleeps a lot these days. When heβs awake we press him for stories, tapping βrecordβ on our smartphone videocameras; converting the tales from his temporal life into immortal pixels.
To everything there is a season and this was the season of eulogies for friends. We mourners read their stories aloud, because that was where they spoke to us from beyond the veil, forever hushed in this world by the churn of time.
The kind veterinarian said fading Cleo, one of our cats, may not last long. Probably cancer. She naps in the sunshine and dreams of joyfully torturing lizards and mice. Her dream stories came to life in her flexing claws and paws.
Thankfully, vibrant life beckoned. βEmma! Weβre going to paint, swim, play in Grandpaβs garden, go to the splash park, to the movies, to the Desert Museum and to Old Tucson where they have a train, and a carousel, and gunfights.β
βDo they shoot people in the audience, Grandpa?β
βThat would be bad for business.β
One evening Emma and I walked up to the school playground with her 14-year old uncle, Matthew. Dusk had fallen and together we invented stories about the stars and the cholla that look like teddy bears and the rattlesnakes that lure babies to their doom with their rattles. And the desert fairies who ride on the backs of jackrabbits. βThey can live forever, Grandpa.β
βOh, really, Em? Good stories, kid.β I didnβt tell her magical beings live only as long as their stories are told.
Under the stars we slid on the slides and ran through the sprinklers and climbed on the monkey bars. For five glorious days Emma and I practiced burping, made messes, dug holes in the garden, and had amazing Nerf gunfights. Would our week together become a story she would someday tell her grandchildren?
The next day I returned Emma to her mom and dad at the doughnut shop and the stories poured out of our heads. Sarah and Joeβs human, number 7,125,543,876, copyright pending, was gestating just fine, story due to be published and launched in October.
I hugged my beloved Emma goodbye. And then I kissed her dear forehead, the vault where all her fantastic stories and a sliver of my immortality lay.
The next afternoon I spent a lovely visit with the Professor, talking about the stories in Sundayβs Times, listening to his reminiscences and comparing grandchildren. Tired, he diplomatically excused himself for a golden nap. I bid him βGood dayβ and without thinking, I reflexively leaned down and kissed his forehead. He sweetly smiled and said, βGood day, sir.β
In the days hence Cleo the cat has grown quiet, while the new chicks in the mourning doveβs nest on the porch are chattering, itching to fly. And down on the border I heard agents had seized βThe Day.β A shipment of carpe diem had been confiscated. I think I shall do the same. Every day. And thatβs my story.
