Day 3,902 —They Like me Too—

 

I ran fast but at the same time I felt so anxious, such a desire to get out and move as fast as I can. I was restless last night and spent a good amount of time transferring an audiotape of my grandfather, who passed before I was born. 

My dad had been holding onto the tapes, but I didn’t know they existed until about a year ago. I told him I would like to listen because it was difficult to miss someone when you have never met them before. When my dad first gave me the tape, it sat on my shelf for a month before I listened. I had to buy an audiotape player. There were none at any of the local stores I visited, so I had to order one online. I bought one that boasted it would be able to transfer to digital with no problem. It didn’t connect to my Mac, so I listened to it with my PlayStation headphones. 

It felt strange having to listen to it with headphones, but it was surprising how normal my grandfather sounded. He talked a little like me in that there was a singsong nature to the way he said things, but he had a country twang, which was different. He sounded nice, shy, and unassuming, not the person I imagined the way my dad has talked about him. My dad described him as a small guy who could “talk tough.” He told me a story where his sister (or was it a cousin?) was getting abused by her husband and his dad had a “conversation” with him and that was the end of it. 

My dad didn’t suggest that he was physical, but that he could “talk tough.” I wonder what he said. My dad  also told me a story about going camping with him when he was a kid. It was my dad’s first camping trip and his dad was there to help. There was a kid who was homesick and wanted to go home. My grandfather sat with him and talked with him. It sounded like something I would do. No one screams louder in my mind than a lonely child.