412 30th Street

The screen door on the back porch leads directly into Grandma's kitchen, and she gets there before me, even though I'm the first out of the car after the lengthy road trip from our home in Alabama to western Pennsylvania. I'm going to Grandma's. Clutching a fat little suitcase that says as much, I conquer the steps in clumsy stride and see the screen door open wide. So does her embrace, which I pull from too soon to ask her to read me a story—Woody the Woodpecker, please. She heeds my urgent request, drying her hands on the towel on the stove where our dinner awaits.

In the afternoon Grandpa takes his oxygen tank into the den. He has something to show me. In one corner is what looks to six-year-old me like a very large, tilted desk. One day it will be replaced by a computer station, but right now it contains brushes, oil paints, photos and a canvas. Grandpa's working on an outdoor scene with a river winding back to the horizon. I smile up at him, impressed. He points to two portraits placed above the closet full of board games.

"Do you know who that man and that woman are?" he asks me. I pause a moment, noting the suit jacket and bowtie on the man and the pink dress and familiar smile the woman is wearing.

"You and grandma?"

"That's right."

"Did you paint those, too?"

"I did." Grandpa turns on the TV, and soon we are watching PBS's Bob Ross paint a happy little tree here and a happy little tree there. It's a really quiet show; all I hear is the whisper of the artist's brush and his occasional comments. He sure makes painting look easy. But the picture he's creating on the screen pales in comparison to the ones around the house, the ones by my very own grandfather.

After dinner Grandma and Grandpa watch the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and then head out to the back porch for fresh air. The fireflies are blinking, and I have a jar in my hands. But when I catch one I wimp out, shaking the alarmed little fellow off my fingers. Watching them is best, the way you see the flash of light floating and then try to guess where the same lively bulb will light up next. It's like looking at the sky on a clear night, except you're right there among these unpredictable constellations.

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In the morning Uncle Bill arrives. He's my dad's older brother, and he's here to visit too, like ten-year-old me, and to redo the bricks on the back patio. I'm shy with him, but he fascinates me. He has sandy red hair—that's where my brother probably got his—and he doesn't have kids. He does things like give hang-gliding lessons and live along the beach. One time he gave me a hang-gliding lesson of sorts.

He's rather quiet himself and seems all right with me not saying much. So while he prepares the sand foundation for newly placed bricks I sit on the gray-blue steps of the porch, providing him an audience while enjoying a little of Grandma's rhubarb with my bowl of sugar. Somehow the bowl is always empty before the stalk is half gone.

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Grandma has agreed to let me interview her for an oral history project I'm doing for a college course. We're seated across from each other at a dining-room table that is as old as her marriage. Today I'm asking her about life-changing events, and one of the experiences she mentions is no surprise, because it had an impact on me, too.

I remember Dad was away for a week visiting Grandma and Grandpa when Mom got the call. Mom's face fell so far as she held that phone to her ear that I couldn't wait for her to hang up and pass along the message to us kids. What happened? What happened? I begged her. She finally covered the receiver for a moment and told me.

"Oh Evie, you know how your Uncle Bill likes to hang-glide, how he's so good at that?"

I nodded slowly, breaking with anticipation and somehow wanting her to finish and to stop the story at the same time.

"Well, he was in an accident today, and … oh, Evie, he … he died."

My throat tightened, the tears welled up, and I wept for my uncle, his brothers, his parents, the people I love. Meanwhile, Dad was back with Grandma and Grandpa when the news came.

I think of Uncle Bill and the patio of bricks and the rhubarb, and I wish I'd told him more often that I loved him, and that I really, really liked him, too. And I think of that vacation in Kitty Hawk, where he once took my siblings and me for mini-hang-gliding flights. I had a broken arm that summer, meaning I couldn't go swimming in the ocean, but Uncle Bill found a way for me to fly. He strapped me in and showed me how to hold onto the kite-like contraption with my good arm. And then he ran along the white beach as fast as his distance-runner, Green-Beret physique could take him, all the while pulling the colorful glider and me above his head.

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Dad and Uncle Jim are coming in a week to help Grandma move to the new apartment, so she's busy going through 60 years' worth of earthly goods. I'm amazed at her ability to make tough decisions about what comes with her and what gets thrown away.

We climb the steps to the attic above the workshop to inspect the items there. Not much is left to do, but we open one ancient-looking chest in a far corner. This chest was all that came with her here to college in the late '30s. Grandma unlatches the dusty black lid and pulls out a quilt made by her mother. Next comes a stack of running magazines, then a big wool coat. I spot a faded green cap.

"And what's this?" I ask. "Not a green beret as in the Green Beret, is it?"

"Oh, yes, it is," Grandma says. "It was Bill's."

As has happened more than once during Grandma's moving process, I find myself shaking my head and speechless. And I'm not even the one moving, the one who must leave behind this estate.

"I'm not really very helpful as far as encouraging you to get rid of things," I tell her. "May I keep the beret?"

She gladly bestows it upon me. As we creak our way down from the attic I tell her I don't know how she does this—how she embraces this change—with such joy and overall chipper-ness, but I am glad she is happy. She laughs a throaty laugh that I love her for, locks the padlock on the workshop and turns to look at her much-beloved home.

"Ready for some supper?"