Of Grandpa Nick, Saturn and Coffee Grounds



This is going to be a difficult weekend for me.  There has been much going through my head, and there is much in terms of the feelings in my heart.  One year ago this weekend was the last weekend I would spend with my Grandpa Nick while he was alive on this earth.  I look back on it now as some of the most tender moments of my life, but also some of the most difficult and heart wrenching.  My grandpa was one of my dearest friends, he was my hero, in many ways he was my rock.  I could describe my relationship with him in every cliché way possible.  I don’t think I can really put in to words sufficient what he meant to me or even what I meant to him.  We had something special and unique, indescribable, and the more I have thought about it, the more that is okay with me.  My relationship with my Grandpa Nick is a pearl of great price that I can carry with me in my heart, one that will be forever polished, and one that I really don’t have to share with anyone else to the full extent simply by virtue of the fact that it’s not possible. 

Existential psychologists and therapists believe that when all is said and done, when it all comes down to it, we, as human beings, are alone.  One of the ways though that human beings find meaning is their potential to connect through relationships.  Through such relationships one can discover themselves and find in their personal awareness that they really are not alone.  It may sound confusing, and I don’t subscribe to myself all that the existentialists believe and teach.  However, I do know and believe that connections we make with other people help us to find meaning in our lives.  I know that my connection with my Grandpa certainly instilled great meaning for me in my own life.

I miss him every day.  I miss seeing him.  I miss hearing his voice.  I miss watching him eat.  I miss watching him pray.  I miss his off-color remarks.  I miss his smile.  I miss his overall love for life.  I miss arguing with him.  I miss that twinkle in his eye that told me despite what he said, that he knew God was real, that he loved Him, and that all was going to be right no matter what happened in this world or in the world to come.  Over the past few days, in thinking about the coming week and what it has come to mean for me, I have felt close to him.  There are little reminders each day of him.  A year ago I wrote a poem on his behalf that I read at his funeral.  It was a poignant writing that shared with my family and friends my feelings about my Grandpa, and to some extent how the world would be without him, for it is certainly a little different.

In the past several days, two thoughts have kept coming to mind as I have reflected on the life of my Grandpa, and even more, my relationship with him.  You know what those thoughts have been?  They have been thoughts of Saturn and coffee grounds.  Yes, those two things have been swirling around in my head a lot.  It’s simply the result of seeing a picture and smelling a smell.  Saturn and coffee grounds.  For me, in the past few days, this has equaled my Grandpa Nick.  I have just written a new poem.  I have decided that I want to share it here.  It is unique in its style.  I even felt the need to write in meter, and to stay true for the most part to a rhyming scheme.  The poem itself is a lot like my relationship with my Grandpa.  You have to get close to it.  You have to experience it.  You may even have to reevaluate it to understand it.  It is beautiful in both its simplicity and in its complexity.  Ultimately, it might not be fully understood by other people.  But in some ways, that doesn’t really matter because what matters is that I understand it, and so does Grandpa.  Is that a little selfish of me?  Perhaps a little.  I do hope you will take the time to read it.  You may have to read it more than once.  For me, it is a reflection on my feelings of the past year.  It is a tribute to my Grandpa as I have experienced him not in life but in death.  It is a tribute to my Grandpa as I have experienced him not as a mortal but as an immortal.  Perhaps in a couple of days I will post some more detailed thoughts about where I intended to go as I wrote this.  I think you will be surprised though at how well it really is understood. 

I love my Grandpa Nick.  That is how he is known to me.  Just Grandpa Nick.  I miss him.  I long for him on most days.  One blessing I do have though, is that never has a day passed in my life, even to now, where I have not experienced him.  Enjoy.

Saturn and Coffee Grounds

Time passes through a series of motions,
Rotations on axis,
Changes of earth-bound varying seasons,
And even through absence,
The unwanted fulfillment of grievance.

Fainter with passing days,
Are familiar and common moments,
Bringing changes in ways,
Of life's meaning and wanting components,
The mem'ry though, it stays.

Pictures and stage play in remem'bring mind,
Feelings of longing heart,
Those common moments one again can find,
When searching for a part,
The permanent connection still aligned.

Saturn and coffee grounds,
Discovered by sight and smell unexpected,
Recalls the unheard sounds,
Of a voice once heard now undetected,
The spirit knows no bounds.

Time passes through a series of motions,
Rotation on axis,
Changes of earth-bound varying seasons,
Yet even through absence,
The connection through Heaven still deepens.


©Joshua D. Cooke
October 5, 2012
For Grandpa Nick


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 


 
 

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