An Old man's Sense of Humor
Thirty-one years later I’ve decide to write about this event. This is the way I remember it and wrote it through that perspective.
When I was seventeen years old my mother’s father died of cancer. She and I had traveled to Johnstown Pennsylvania days before the funeral to comfort my grandmother and help get my grandfathers affairs in order.
My grandparents lived in a two story clapboard sided home located on a hillside as was every other home in Johnstown. The first floor consisted of a kitchen, a dining room, the living room and an enclosed porch. The three bedrooms and the one bathroom in the home were located on the second floor.
Days after the funeral Mom and Grandma were going through the personal effects of my grandfathers when I emerged from the bathroom and heard crying coming from my grandparent’s bedroom.
Having witnessed enough heartbreak that week, I had no desire to see these two women crying again, a scene that wrenched my heart to hear or watch. Even so I approached the room slowly to find out what was wrong. The closer I moved toward the door the more hysterical the sound of the two women became. At the threshold I hesitated a moment, took a deep breath and walked into the room.
My mother and grandmother sat on the bed holding one another, their bodies seemed to shake in utter sadness. I cleared my throat and asked “Mom, Grandma are you alright?”
Mom looked up at me with tears streaming down her face, but the expression wasn’t sad, she said “We’re fine Rob.” Then she and Grandma started laughing again.
I stood frozen in bewilderment and thought, “They aren’t crying, they’re laughing.”
When they were finally able to speak my mother noticed the odd look I was giving them and said with a smile, “You need to look in the top drawer of your Grandfathers dresser.”
I turned to the right and opened the drawer a little wider and looked within. “What am I looking for?”
“Over to the left side Robbie, there’s a box”, Grandma said, “Pick it up and read it.”
On the left side of that drawer, towards the front was a small open cardboard box with little lengths of string in it. I picked up the box and on its side written in my grandfather’s hand read the following ironic words… “String too short to save.”
Mark Ramstead
I am lucky I stumbled on to this treasure…. : )
RobPM replied
Thank you Mark. Persoanlly I feel that I told the story rather than showed the story, but it is a memory of mine and that’s how I wrote it.
Ya’ll be cool!
Rob