Big Me, little me

Using my powers of flawless recreation of childhood recollection, I now stand next to my 13 year old self. We are before a gravestone that belongs to my paternal grandfather. I am here in Central Texas now because I am an adult, and I need to help my younger self deal with this properly.

I see the younger me lay a flower on the grass, innocently, sweetly. Because this was me, I know what this 13 year old is thinking. He’s remembering when Pa let him drive the tractor. He remembers this so clearly, because in those days it was strange to spend time with an older man, one who took to you, who taught you about bird watching and eating nasturtiums. Strange to be encouraged, and strange to be hugged.

The little me remembers sitting on his lap in the tractor, and learning about clutches and throttles, recalling a lawnmower with a rabbit drawn above a tortoise, like the story. But he makes a mistake and the tractor lunges forward. Pa’s straw hat flies off his head, and is taken by the breeze, floating momentarily, but then falls like a satellite. It lands beneath the brush hog, whose blades shred it into a thousand, thousand tiny pieces.

Me: You’re still amazed that he didn’t hit you, aren’t you?

me: he never got angry with me.

Me: But that’s normal. People don’t ordinarily strike you for making honest mistakes. You have to know this.

me: it was his favorite hat.

Me: * laughing, meanly * No, it wasn’t. He never had a favorite hat. You’re turning this into a memory he doesn’t deserve.

The younger me ignores my advice and turns back to the grave. Now that I’ve interfered with the past, I cannot be quite sure what he is thinking now. I feel as though I have changed it somehow. I feel differently than I did a moment ago.

But I can imagine what that little me was remembering before the Big Me so thoughtfully interrupted him. He would have remembered turning to see Pa, bald from the disease that would soon take him. He would have remembered clenching, and wondering when the yelling might start. But it didn’t, and the absence of discipline confuses me into feeling even worse.

Me: Look, just because a few adults are mean doesn’t mean that the nice people are given to fits of fury. You don’t have to flinch every time you drop a cup or talk out of turn.

me: he was angry.

Me: No, he wasn’t. And if he was, to hell with him, he shouldn’t have let his son abuse you.

The younger me looks back in horror at these words. Even though I have now completely changed the course of my history, I know what he’s thinking. How dare I trample upon the memory of this man who was so kind? His beloved Pa. But he’s so naïve. He ignores the truth of the matter, that this grandfather who loved him so dearly never stopped the beatings. He doesn’t know that he could have stopped it all with merely a word.

The younger me takes a step away from the Big Me, one closer to the grave. Unbelievably, he sets another flower upon the grass. I step forward now and retrieve the flower.

Me: No! Don’t honor this man! I know this is hard, but you’re gonna have to grow up now. This is sentimental. And it’s false.

The little me reaches for the flower I’ve taken, but I hold it above his head, and when he doesn’t stop trying to reach for it, I tear the petals from the stem and toss the remains as far as my arm will allow.

The little me looks at Me as though I am the bad guy, as though I am the one here to hurt him. But I only have his best interests in mind. My interests.

Me: Don’t do that. Take the other flower and give it to someone who deserves it.

me: leave me alone.

Me: You can’t love him back if he never loved you in the first place.

me: please stop.

Me: Tell him you hate him.

me: just shut up, already.

Me: Do it like this, "I hate you."

me: I hate you.

Me: Good Again.

me: I hate you.

Me: He can hear you, I know. Tell him again.

me: how could you?

I have to step back now, because my grandmother approaches, and puts a hand on his shoulder. She takes him into her arms, and I want to pry him away and tell him that she was culpable, too, just like the grandfather. But she coos, and won’t give me an entry.

“There, there, sweetie. I miss him, too.”

But I smile when she notices the flower.

“What happened to the carnation, sugar?”

They eventually walk off, leaving me alone, a ghost at a gravesite. I turn to finish the job I came here to do. But alone, I pause, realizing that he was talking to Me. He has somehow changed My future, and not the other way around as I had planned.

And he plants within me a wicked memory of sitting in his lap, on a tractor in a Texas hayfield. And the wind takes his hat, just like I remember. But the expression on his face when I mow over his hat is different, somehow. Now that I have kids of my own, I recognize that look. And I’ll be goddamned if it isn’t love, after all. I touch my grandfather’s face in that memory now, and he lets me. And I can feel that it hurts him when I do.

It was your favorite hat, wasn’t it?

He smiles.

I don’t hate you, Pa.

I am sitting in his lap, steering his tractor. We are laughing about how many pieces we made out of that straw hat. He tells me to turn the tractor all the way around, and we head back to do it again.