Gifts

My favorite picture of my Grandpa Wright, Ralph, and I is of the two of us sitting face to face. I’m perched on a little wooden stool with jam on my face and my crazy brown curly afro springing in all directions. (My hair relaxed at about four-years-old.) My grandpa is sitting on one of those chairs from the 70’s and 80’s with the metal legs and bad vinyl upholstery. He is wearing a red and white flannel shirt with a white undershirt. He looks very grandpa like but youngish compared to my more recent memories of him. Our feet are in an orange tub.

This is a picture of our nightly Epson-salt footbaths. We were, and still are if you ask me, pretty good buds. When he was around I was his little shadow and had to do everything he was doing. I would get quite upset when I was not allowed to have my own axe to help him chop wood. What toddler wouldn’t? He was my hero and I wanted to be just like him.

I giggle a little when I am driving with someone who crosses over the centre line or hits the rumble strips. So long as there is no oncoming traffic that is. My grandpa was a dreamer. He was a creator really, but in order to create one must first dream. I giggle because of a story my parents have repeated often over my years. It has become a sort of inside joke. My grandpa would slip into his daydreams while driving, which drove my grandmother bonkers of course. Each time the car would falter off to the right or the left she would yell “Ralph!” But the way she yelled it, dragging the ‘r’ making his name sound as if it was coming out of a cat as its tail was being slammed in a door.

As a wee little brat I thought this was a hilarious way to address my grandpa. I thought it was so much fun to randomly yell “Ralph!”, just for kicks, in the car while my dad was driving. My parents always got a good giggle out it. My grandma did not. But she is good spirited enough to not take offence. I still like to mimic her when driving with my dad if he falters to left of right. As a matter of fact so does my mom.

In those daydreams Grandpa could have been dreaming up something that he was planning on building or improving upon. Or he could have been thinking about one of his poems. He was famous for writing poems and short stories on napkins and scraps of paper in the coffee shops he would frequent. My grandma would find some of them in his shirt or pant pockets and did her best to save them. We are sure that for every one she found and saved there are two that were left behind on napkin with a coffee stain from the spoon he stirred around in mug he was sipping on as he wrote.

I didn’t see very many of these poems until just before he passed away about eight years ago. Some of us grandchildren picked a few to read at his memorial service. I had been toying with the idea of a tattoo for a while but had no idea what I wanted to get. After reading through the yellow duo-tang of his salvaged words I decided that when the time was right I would get one of, or part of one of, his poems.

The time came last winter. My brother, Travis, and I looked through a few of our favorites and settled on a poem Grandpa wrote in 1973 called Gifts. Travis was going to get the first two verses and I was going to get the last two. The whole poem as one tattoo would take up too much space as the letters should be fairly large.

We researched a shops and artists in Edmonton and settled on a female artists named Jakob, at a shop called Atomic Zombie. We booked an entire Saturday on November 11th. Fitting, as our grandpa was in the Canadian forces and these were to be memorial tattoos. As the date drew near my brother’s life got busy and he had to back out. I was pretty bummed-out but was going ahead with the appointment anyway. I was starting with the fourth and final verse on my upper left arm. Jakob and I had decided on a font and she had created a beautiful henna like back scheme. I arranged to have my partner Nik and one of my best friends Nicole come to take shifts to hold my hand. I was nervous but so stoked that I was finally going through with this.

On the morning of the 11th Nik dropped me off at the entrance of the shop then went to park. He took before pictures of my arm and waited with me while Jakob prepped her equipment and then prepped me. I squeezed his hand and anticipated the great and horrible pain that some had warmed me of while reminding myself that most of the ladies who I knew with tattoos had said it wasn’t as bad as the guys said it was.

The gun started with a buzz then hit my arm. Then the dull burn began. It really wasn’t that bad. Uncomfortable yes but not unbearable. It felt sort of like a sunburn moving around. I sent Nik off to do the weekly Saturday shopping at the Farmers Market, assuring him that I was fine and that Nicole would be by soon to hold my hand. He went off about his day and Nicole, assuming that Nik was with me went on about hers. Jakob and I took two breaks and chatted a bit between my self induced zone-outs. I thought about calling one of my support team members to come down. I assumed that they both assumed the other was with me. I decided that I was in my zone and just fine on my own. Jakob was good company and she probably didn’t need any extra distractions as she was putting permanent ink into my arm.

Jakob finished most of the front-face of my arm by about six-thirty. All the lettering and the design she had planned, plus some little extras she put in free hand are in rusty reds, browns and oranges. I loved it. I still love it.

Nik tried to sneak up behind me as Jakob was wrapping my arm in aftercare products. He apologized for not coming back and I assured him that I was just fine on my own and glad it turned out that way. After all, I had Jakob there to chat with when I was feeling chatty and she left me be while I was zoning out. I am sure my grandpa was chilling with us too.

Before leaving the shop I made another appointment for the 19th of April and left the shop with words to live by from one of my greatest heroes right where I will see them each and every day.

“Of all the gifts that you’ve received to enhance the life you live, by far the greatest gift of all is the gift of love you give.”


Grammie Cool’s Lazy Daisy Cake

Cake:

Cream together 2 eggs and 1 cup of sugar

Sift together 1 cup of flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt then stir into egg and sugar mixture.

In a non-stick sauce pan bring 1 cup of milk and 1 tbs of butter to a simmer. Stir into the other ingredients.

Bake for 20 minutes at 350F

Frosting:

Blend together ½ cup of brown sugar 1/4 tbls butter, 1 tbls milk, ¾ cup coconut. Spread over warm cake then put back in the oven for 3-4 minutes or until the top is browned.