life is a collection of bittersweet memories
childhood stories, ageing and salty cereal
I saw my Grandfather today.
He’s getting old.
Not mentally, but it was the first time I saw him and realised that he’s a 94 year old man. It’s always a shock to the system, when you see someone you love getting old, or rather, you realise that they’re getting old. As though all the signs that they’re in their final years finally hit you, like catching red and blue lights flashing in your rear view mirror.
It feels like only yesterday he was driving us in his boat along the river during the summer holidays. We always packed curried sandwiches for lunch, and in between dips, he’d offer us a ginger beer and tell the funniest stories from his childhood.
We reminisced about the time I stayed with him for the weekend and I accidentally put a tablespoon of salt on my cereal instead of sugar. I started crying because I didn’t want to waste the food, but I also didn’t want to eat salt-covered cereal. He came over and consoled me, no doubt biting down on his tongue to stop himself from laughing. We both laugh about it now.
We would always watch movies in the evening. Classics, of course. Annie. Anne of Green Gables. The Sound of Music. Mary Poppins. I must have been 7 or 8, and I would always sit in the middle of him and my nan on their bed. It felt like a warm hug.
He also told me about a time he called me when I was a toddler and asked what colour dress I had on. Apparently I responded rather enthusiastically, “gweeen”, to which my brother snorted in the background and said “that’s funny, because you haven’t got anything on”. That gave us all a good laugh. My favourite colour to this day is green.
I remember the melted ham and cheese sandwiches he’d make me for lunch. The childlike voice he’d assigned to my teddy bear when playing with him which always left me feeling winded from laughing so much.
All of these memories. All of these stories.
It’s weird, listening to stories you can remember. Reminiscing about the past over a cup of tea and a biscuit or two. It’s like you can scroll through your mental archives, grab a memory and relive it for a moment, only to watch it fade like a dying light on your bedside table.
Time goes so fast.
When you’re young, you don’t realise the importance of creating memories. You don’t realise that a silly mistake you make as a child, like putting salt on your breakfast, will become a memory that you relive over a cup of tea in 20 years.
I cried on the way home.
I think the most bittersweet parts of human existence are our memories.
There’s an emptiness that reveals itself after reliving a memory. After the laughter and exaggerated gestures, a moment of silence takes its place. The eyes begin to look like someone who’s transfixed on a hauntingly beautiful painting. There’s a longing that coats the eyes, seasoned with feelings of fear, sadness and confusion. It almost feels like a small funeral – the mourning of a memory.
It’s a realisation that you will never again exist in that moment. That every moment passes, and time moves as fast as a butterfly flaps its wings. That we’re often too distracted to acknowledge the significance of what’s happening right in front of us. I wonder if the only way we’re supposed to appreciate a moment is through the memory of it.
I am somewhat afraid that this is what it must be like getting old – a perpetual cycle of reliving memories.
Working in a nursing home at 19 revealed that elderly people love telling stories about their lives. In fact, it’s often all they talked about. I remember crying after every shift. It always felt like they were grieving their lives before they’d even died.
I heard someone describe nursing homes as ‘God's Waiting Room’ once, and it’s heartbreakingly accurate.
Is getting old a perpetual feeling of emptiness? Lost in memories, only to be reluctantly transported back to the present moment? What is it like to know that you’re at the end? That there are no new stories to make. That you’re on the last chapter of your life.
I can still see the longing in my grandfather's eyes. All of his incredible stories are just bittersweet memories. And when he inevitably succumbs to his old age, he’ll become a bittersweet memory for me too.
Perhaps that’s what life is, a collection of bittersweet memories.
Until next time,
Plot Collector
This was a beautiful piece!! To me, memories feel like heartbreak, but in an intoxicating way.
Me and my grandfather always had a very close relationship. He still dominates what I think of as a "good man." He always had patience when trying to teach me something and was always willing to discuss whatever silly ideas or interests I had as a child. He was very fit and active all the way up until his death, so we would frequently take me on hikes to dams where we would swim together or take me hunting in the bush.
He lived through the 2nd World War and I loved to learn about the war, the tactics used, the tanks, and everything that influenced it. I remember many nights I would spend hours sitting on the tip of his bed talking to him about the war, what it was like growing up in that time, and what his time in the Army was like. Nowadays I sleep on that same exact bed, even though I have bigger more modern and luxurious beds available to me, just because it helps me feel a connection to him. Some nights I can almost hear his stories as I am about to fall asleep.
Unfortunately he died when I was only 12. He died of a heart attack and I was the one that found him. Since that day my life has never been the same, never as care free, never as enjoyable. When he died a part of me died as well I think.
We are so similar it some times scares me. We are the same height and build and I even wear the same mustache that he did in homage to him. I also only recently started seriously reading and somehow all on my own I fell in love with the same books he loved. When I started reading I never went through his old books because it felt too painful, I bought my own, but as I gained the courage to look through his books I found that me and him enjoyed the same books by the same authors. It is a part of why I read, by reading I discover what he loved, I learn more about him, I learn more about a man I can never speak to again.
All I can say to you is appreciate what you have with your grandfather. You are lucky to have such fond memories with him and try to enjoy the moments that you still have left with him. He may one day leave this earth but the love and joy you shared with him will be carried with you forever. Appreciate that, it is a tremendous gift.