Chapter 36

Another ghost story? Well, you just wait. 

Mother had a special relationship with Grandad Mares. As a rebellious teenager, she would often climb out the upstairs window to meet a date, then try to sneak back in the front door late at night. A couple of times he caught her, and “he got so mad he kicked me all the way from the front door to the back door,” as she told it.

“It’s OK,” she would add. “I’d had my fun. And I deserved it.”

He was a strict German Catholic and probably was glad when she eloped to marry Daddy without telling anyone! But I know he always worried about her.

From her memoir: 

Don didn’t know what he wanted to do after he got out of the Navy, so my dad and he were writing back and forth and they decided a small restaurant in Maple Lake would be a good idea. 

Don got some money when he was mustered out. He never told me anything about our finances, so I don’t know how much. We used that to rent part of what had been a hardware store. The floor was oiled, and we had to sand the whole thing and that was a lot of work. 

We worked like dogs, fixing up that old building.  We fixed it up so cute. Mom came up and made pies every day. We were open till late at night, and we made good money. Six weeks we had it.  Then Don’s folks came up to visit and after they left, he said, “I’m leaving in the morning. I’m going back to Missouri. I’m going in with Russell on that country store. Sell the restaurant and come down when it’s done.” 

I had to sell the restaurant — what did I know about doing something like that? My folks were just furious (with him). But they never said a word. They just helped me. Then I had to get ready for him to come get me, and he said if I didn’t want to come, he’d take Andrea and I could do what I want. That left a bad taste in my mouth all my life.

Well, Grandad didn’t like Daddy much after that. I think he realized how Daddy sometimes treated her, but he never said much until the time, years later, he called Daddy to do a minor plumbing job and Daddy sent him a bill for it!  That kind of cinched their mutual dislike.

Grandad could hold a grudge, and Daddy, too. 

After Grandmother Mares died, Mother tended to check on him a lot. She’d bring him fresh-baked cookies or a casserole (he wasn’t much of a cook) and stop in to see him whenever she was in town (a lot). When he got ill and had to go into nursing care, she’d visit him several times a week and sometimes take him to McDonald’s (new in town) for “a licker” — a soft-serve ice cream cone. He loved that. At the end, she was there every day, and one day she came to visit and he asked her, “What are those … things … up in the corner of the ceiling?”

She looked. Nothing.

“What do you think they are, Daddy?” she asked. 

“I think they might be angels,” he said.

The hair rose up on the back of her neck, she recalled, when telling me later.

He told her they were watching him, and that they told him he had to get rid of all his energy before he could go. He wanted her to sit him up, rub his back, and “take his energy,” he said. She obliged.

As she laid him back down, he told her, “Mom was here last night. She’s waiting for me.”

He was clear about everything else and a no-nonsense kind of guy who did not really believe in such things, normally.  

She came home later and told Daddy she thought Grandad was at the end. Early the next morning, the nursing staff called her and told her he had passed away. 

Now Grandad, as I said, was sometimes rather stern and did not like to be argued with.  He knew he was dying and had told Mother, “I don’t want any crying. No crying. When I’m gone, I’m gone.” He also left instructions for which suit he wanted to be buried in, and so on. 

Mother called Tootie (her sister, who also lived in Maple Lake), and they went to the nursing home to take care of the paperwork and assign his body to a funeral home. Then they went to his house to fetch the suit and other clothing he wanted for his burial.  

There was a half wall full of shelves that Grandad had built for Grandmother to hold all her knick-knacks. She had dozens and dozens of them. 

When Mother and Tootie were getting the clothes, they were talking about Grandad and both started crying. Then they heard a loud CRASH!

They dashed out of the bedroom into the dining room, separated from the living room by the oversized shelf unit, and found all the knick-knacks on the floor.  None were broken. 

They looked at each other, stunned.

“Well,” Mother said, “He said not to cry.”

They nervously laughed, replaced all the figurines, and left with his clothes.

Later, when Mother came home to make Daddy’s lunch, she was telling him what happened at the house. Then she started crying.

CRASH!

From upstairs came a thunderous noise. They both went up the stairs to an amazing sight.  On the wall between the bedrooms was a photo gallery. Lots of framed family photos. They had all jumped off the wall and landed on the floor. All except one photo … of Grandad.

“Cripes!” Mother cried. “He wasn’t kidding.”

She called Tootie and told her what happened.

When they got to the funeral, Mother and Tootie sat together. Mother nudged her sister and said, “Whatever you do, don’t cry.” They both looked up at the big statue of the Virgin Mary above them.  “I mean it. Don’t cry, whatever you do.” 

Then they giggled. Nervously.

Epilogue: Here is a poem I wrote many years ago, after his death …

ANGELS, HE SAID

As he lay dying
in that narrow
nursing home coffin of a bed, 
foot gone
because his heart
could not summon
enough blood to support it …
he wanted to go.

Angels, he said.

They visited last night;
they’re here again now.
Angels
telling him 
he could not come
until energy expired,
gone, bereft of body.

Sit me up,
rub my back
now gone to skin-sheathed bone.
Take my energy from me
that I may go.
Gather my children
so I can say for once
I am sorry.
They know why.

Mom was here
(his wife of 40 years, who died a decade ago)
and she’s waiting,
he says.
He was sometimes cruel
in his German-Catholic
grudge-holding way.
Now he wants to 
be with her.
Why she’s waiting
one can only wonder
though she always did pity
a suffering thing.

I’m not afraid now, he says,
eyes glowing.
Excited, more like it.
This the greatest adventure of all,
the most wonderful thing.
And angels, he said,
are waiting,
watching from the corner 
of this sterile cell.
Angels.