Memories of Him by Jöseph Lee Foster-Shumpert-Lear, 1995
Published 22 March 2004 :: Prose Poem
Read more by Jöseph Lee Foster-Shumpert-Lear
Can you imagine it? After all of those times of seeing my grandfather, all of those times that I left home to spend thirteen long hours of agonizing and excruciating anticipation of what him and I would do together, in a car of mid-June heat. Some of the hottest as I remember it. Can you imagine doing that from the time I was a week old until I was thirteen, only to suddenly have to say goodbye?
It happened on a mid-September night. My mother entered the darkened basement room to trip over the clothes which were spawned across the floor and couch. She cursed her way over what was probably to her like going through a mine field. One wrong step and she would break something of importance to me. When she reached her destination, my bed, she bent over and whispered, “Jöseph . . . Jöseph , baby comes on you have to get up now.” The words were incoherent as the consciousness crept back into my mind, pushing away the cloudy midst of elaborate dreams that only seconds ago danced through my mind like professional dancers on opener night. “I don't want to go to school” was my only response on that dark Saturday morning.
It was two o'clock in the morning, and at the time I had not yet fully recovered my lost consciousness, so I failed to hear the tension and pain that were present in her voice. Little did I know that I was awakened only to be driven to this unknown destination, and put to rest once more in a bed that was not my own. Later that day, I sat for what seemed like centuries by that silent telephone in my grandmother's dreary and uncomfortable Deco style living room, awaiting any word of comfort and relief from my mother. Then like the rumble of Zeus’ thunderbolt, it came. Quiet at first, and then louder and louder until I thought the receiver would jump like in those old “Loony Tune” cartoons. The once so awaited sound now sent shards of needles and glass up and down my spine until the feeling left with my body tingling all over. Should I answer it? What if it's good news and I can return to a sweet and tranquil slumber in my own bed, but what if it’s bad news? Oh God, why is this happening to me? Why me? What did I do wrong? Is this some kind of divine punishment sent by God himself?
As I pondered these questions in my head, my thoughts ran rampant through the streets of my neural pathways like rats running from the rain. Amidst all of my self-inflicted pain, a harsh (yet strong) voice broke through saying, “You’re fourteen years old. You can handle it. Pick up that phone and take it like a man.” Unfortunately, before I could pick up the receiver, my sister stormed up from the back of the house like a streak of lightening across the sky during a heavy thunderstorm. With all the grace and glamour of a skater, Stacey picked up the phone. My heart, a massive mold of stone, sank as I awaited word. Within seconds, the receiver was in my hand.
The words that were softly spoken in my ear were filled with tears of immense pain and sorrow, and as my mother explained what was happening; her pain slowly melded into my heart like two massive steel bars under the intense heat of a torch, bringing tears that would fall like rain to my eyes. A storm was coming. Outside the darkened clouds grew lighter as a streak of lightening blew them apart to show my anger as my mother said, “It's Grandpa . . . He's dead.” My first response was that she was lying. He'd fought to live for ninety-three years, and now his body gives up on him? He’d survived three strokes, a heart attack, the great Depression and the World Wars, walked with Martin Luther King Jr., and taught his grandson, Jöseph to fight for what he felt in his heart.
It all seems to have been in vain for now the great teacher of life has given up on its student of ninety-three years. I remember breaking the silence which had brought on these thoughts by telling my mother that he had been more a father to me than anything else, raising me from the time I was six until I was ten, training me in the martial art of Ninjitsu and the ever mystical art of chivalry, but now like the once terrible storm which brought the great flood of Noah's time, my father was gone.
Shock and fear surrounded me like a swarm of hungry sharks before the strike, and then anger at being left behind joined the hunt. They left me in Aurora, Illinois while they, my parents all 33,000,000 of my relatives, flocked like geese to New Albany, Mississippi to have a turn at saying goodbye. I sat in a darkened corner of the basement room, which my grandmother had set up for me, for hours thinking of all the things that “Father” had wanted me to do. All the plans for a career in teaching and of great-grandchildren. I thought of how I would love to be able to run into his arms after the diploma was in my hand, and tell him that it was because of him and his teachings that I got this far. He left me; swore that he would never leave my side, but did it anyway. Were all of his teachings as good as his vow, or was this one of those times that he had always prepared me to be strong through?
He's gone now and I never got to say goodbye to him. I struck a match, grimacing at the strong sulfuric smell emanating from the flame, picked up my notebook and started writing. It was hard at first. The candlelight didn't seem to be sufficient for someone who was use to fluorescent lights, and the tears I held back became daggers to stab at my heart repeatedly.
“Often I think of death and dying. Wouldn't it be wonderful to never have another problem another care? But then I look at his picture read his obituary; and think . . . “
The pain within me now became too much to contain as my mind sent these words through my fingers onto the paper. The pain flowed through me, coursing its way through my veins until it met my eyes only to be released in a shower of tears. The next day I packed my bags because school began again on Monday and my parents were to return that night. In my hasty packing I did not notice that the poem I had started was not among my things in my duffel.
I went to school and would have gone through the day without a single thought of my grandfather had Mr. Shepard not called me to his office. Like anyone else who had no clue about what happens around them, my first thoughts were, What did I do? I had done nothing all day, but sit in class and take notes
like the perfect little angel that I was. Reluctantly, I left my seventh hour French class to walk down a dimly lit hallway and enter a room which held a mysterious surprise for me.
Outside of Mr. Shepard's office, I paused for a brief moment to compose myself for what awaited me behind that door of massive wood and glass. As I opened the door, the creek of the old hinges played true to the feeling of fear in my mind. It is definitely time to stop watching those horror movies, I thought to myself. The sight within the room was too much, as again the tears filled my eyes, I ran to her opened arms and gave her a bear hug. I have never been too, close to my mother, and for the first time since I was sent to live with “Father,” I told her that I loved her. While I was allowing my emotions to leak through my eyes, Mr. Shepard took my sister from her seventh hour class. I got out of school early that day.
I guess I should have been thankful that my parents arrived home three hours early. I wasn't. My mother took my sister and me out to eat, and afterwards we met Sam (my dad) at the house. We sat in our living room without turning on any of the lights. It gave the impression of sadness and added that look to each of our four faces as we sat there in silence until it was going to asphyxiate us with hands of unspoken emotion and thought. My mother, being the brave one, was the first to speak. Her apology gave little comfort, but in the hard months to come, I would be grateful. Regardless, however, the poem remained unfinished on my grandmother's basement floor.
Five or six months later I was to lose my girlfriend to a bullet in the head. I was asked to say something at her funeral, but found myself speechless in front of our family and friends. I sat down in defeat as her father took my place to read the poem I had spent two days composing for her. As I sat there listening to the misgiven emotions of my poem by her father, thoughts of my grandfather crept into mind like a thief into a house. I suddenly remembered the poem I began so long ago. I would not finish the poem until I was sixteen and went to Mississippi for the first time since his death.
Upon that visit, I walked into the graveyard where my “Father” lay at rest. I sat by his grave taking in for a moment the deathly chill, which overcame me at first. The grass, newly dewed, was cold in the early dawn of my sixteenth birthday. “Papa,” I said, “you were my grandfather, but more so my father. You raised me as your son though I was not of the same blood as your children. You taught me the languages of my ancestors, and how to fight the nightmares which take hold after I close my eyes at night. You were so much to me and yet, I could not be here to say goodbye like I should have. I’m sorry papa. I love you with all my heart. I wrote this for you, I'll leave it here for you. Goodbye.” I took from my pocket a folded piece of paper. As I opened it, the tears that fell made the ink illegible. Regardless, I found myself reading it aloud to a shimmer of light which emanated from a break in the clouds.
“Memories of him: Letting Go”
Often I think of death and dying
Wouldn't it be wonderful to never have another problem
But then I look at his picture
Read his obituary;
And I think
Grandpa never took the easy way out
He stood and fought like a man should to the very end
A glorious man was Robert Shumpert
Every memory a fond one
Saddened, however, I am when
I think there will never be another
My grandfather is gone
And with him we send our love
They say that loving someone sometimes means having to let go when it's time
How do you do that
How do you just let go
I can't
My heart just won't let me say good-bye for good
And so, I live with the memories
I have of him,
And the hope that
I will, one day, see him again
I love you Grandpa
As I stand, I place the poem on the ground by the rose I had lain there before and again I said it as I do now. Goodbye papa, I love you
