That man was the twinkle in a child's eye, the giggle of an adolescent, and the cry of a new born babe all rolled up into human form. If you could see past the tanned wrinkled skin and the feather white garland of his hair, you would see a spriteful, pranking child. In his cool calm blue eyes you could see the twinkle of the youth still hiding in the body of an old man. Those eyes saw every nuance and every sparkle in his first granddaughter's possibilities.
“Look at the flowers.” He once said, “See them growing, each one is different, each one is special, and each one is beautiful. You're my little flower.” Then he went inside for his nap leaving the three year old girl to play in the backyard. She looked at the flowers for a long time and then she picked them. She picked every flower in her Grandfather's garden.
“Grandpa, Grandpa come see!” a young voice cried as the backdoor slammed, “Grandpa, I made a flower shop come see.” The happiness and pride were apparent in her calls, “Close your eyes.” The old man did as he was told as his granddaughter led him to her masterpiece. “Open them!” she cried and struck a dramatic pose behind the patio furniture covered with vases and bowls filled with the flowers. Every single one of his flowers, his award winning garden.
“Beautiful” was the first word out of his mouth, “My girl is so smart, and look how pretty you mixed the colours. Lila, come look! Our Granddaughter is an expert florist.” Another picture came to the album and the little girls memories.
Every chance they got they added to both the album and the memories. Her Grandpa was never too busy for her, even when he really was. She used to watch him work at the pharmacy that her grandparents owned. She used to watch him fill the colourful capsules or amuse herself in other areas of the store. Her favourite activities while waiting for her grandparents to get off work were, jumping from tile to tile on the red and white checkerboard floor and running upstairs to the office to get lemondrops while her Grandma did the books. When they did get off of work the fun would begin again returning to the backyard, and the worlds that existed in her and her Grandpa's imagination.
That imagination was limitless, a sheet tent was a coal mine and a refrigerator box a mansion. It wasn't a mansion at first that took some work. But the task was one that the two took on willingly and happily. Refrigerator boxes are easily transformed with only a staple gun. The grandfather worked on the project even when his granddaughter was home in Las Cruces. On her next visit to Truth or Consequences she found he has added a real door with a wooden frame and a latch. He had also put in a gray and brown speckled carpet, and found a little wooden table and stool to complete the furnishing. This visit was the most important though: a very important decision had to be made involving the windows.
“How should we do these windows?” he pondered spinning his Exacto knife, “We could cut them like a capital ‘I’. Then you would have shutters that open and close.”
She walked around and around the small brown structure, saying “I want glass, Grandpa like the dining room, two big windows that I can look out of.”
They figured out how to install these windows by putting in two plexy-glass panes with duct tape sills. The two of them went to the drugstore to buy shelf paper to decorate the walls. He let her choose and she beamed up at him. She chose a bold print with red and black zig-zags and black spots. She only chose a design for the outside, because she liked the brown walls. They were bumpy, and when she ran her hands over them the walls made a noise like zhhr zhhr. She even liked the smell of the cardboard, like new paper and wood chips. It was possible she was the happiest little girl in the world, with her cardboard house, flowers, and her grandfather. It was too bad it did not last.
He was ill. His naps came more often. She did not realise. She did not know what the trips to Las Cruces were for. She only knew that when her grandparents came to town that she got to stay with them in the hotel. She did not know that her grandpa had to go to the doctor. No one told her that he was dying. She only knew pillow fights, and paper dolls, not disease, and death. The visits to Las Cruces became more frequent. Then the visits stopped. He was too tired to play is what her parents told her when they visited her grandparents in T or C. He would sneak outside to the cardboard house though, and watch the flowers grow and bloom with her. She did not know he wasn't supposed to go outside. Eventually he was to sick to go outside.
The little girl is not three anymore, not seven or even ten, now she is twenty. She remembers though. She remembers colouring and reading comic books with him is his Lazy Boy chair. When she visits her grandmother she looks at the little cardboard house. It is still on the porch, only now starting to show weathering. The flowers are gone but the cardboard mansion is still there. Still there like her memories, and her love.
She is going to be an architect one day specialised in landscaping. The garden and the little house knew that though, and so did he. That house and those flowers were an embodiment of her future. A future that her grandpa helped her build.
A future that will never forget the man that took the pictures. A man that taught her the thrill of designing and building. A man that taught her about flowers. A man that taught her that she was different, special, and beautiful. A man that was and will always be her grandpa.
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