Truly Lost?

Some of the hardest things to keep are the things you can not record.

How do I go back now, years later, and remember something that can not be expressed in words of which I have no photograph or video or sound file or object to prove?

How do I assure myself I will always remember...

My grandfather's voice?

The smell of my favorite perfume when I was a child?

The place in the woods where I found those "fairies" that one time?

How do I recount those things?

I can say that my grandfather had a deep voice with a rough sort of purr on the edge of it. That will give every last one of you a different mental voice than the one I recall.

I can only recall a few things well enough to *hear* it in my head. I dig into that today...

And realize my grandfather had a morbid sense of humor. Hilarious... as so do I.
He told morbid jokes. He was dry a lot of the time. But he was kind.

What stands out are the songs he used to sing to me. War songs.
One was about a mother not staying home with her young child and the child getting sick and dying while the mother was out partying.

Another was about a mother receiving a letter from her son who was in the war and realizing that it was unsigned, a sign that he had been killed and his friends had sent his unfinished letter to let her know.

These are awfully morbid things to sing to a child, one would think. But, as he probably knew then, I didn't get them then. I didn't get them until I was well old enough to be okay with that sort of thing...

Now I wonder...

About all the things my grandfather surely kept inside.
Why did he sing war songs?
What were the "adult" parts of his life that he would never tell to a child...
If he had lived onward to the present, would he talk to me about his life now?
What concerns and troubles did he have that I never saw?

This made me remember my grandfather's parents and family.

My grandfather was Darrel Earl Wise. He was a wonderful man. The only person in my family who I truly knew, without a doubt, loved me. I loved him so much. Losing him was devastating to me at age 13 when I was the one to find him dead.

His mother was always known to me as "Mama Wise". I want to say her named was "Eddie Louise". And I think her maiden name was "Daniel" but I can't remember for sure.

Paw's (my grandfather was always called Paw by his grandkids) father's name was "Earl Wise" and was always known to us simply as "Papa Wise".

Papa Wise worked in the mines. He had black lung and was sick by the time I was old enough to remember him. He was a thin, spindly old man who never smiled. But he always seemed content regardless.
I remember sitting on his lap, trying to turn his glasses "the right way" because he had glasses with the kind of frames that connect at the bottoms of the spectacles instead of at the top and I always thought he had them upside down. I knew him only for a few years before he died ... I was 7 I believe when that happened.

Mama Wise... I barely remember any at all. I recall seeing her walking up the hill from her house to my Paw's house. That's it. I remember the flowery dresses she wore.. moo-moo's sorta. Old simple formless country dresses that an old lady in the South would wear.

I remember the shoes she wore.

I also remember that I thought it was sooooo strange that she had a bedroom and Papa Wise had one too. Why did they not share one? I never understood that. I still don't.

Her room always smelled of Avon perfumes and powder. I never much went into Papa Wise's room.
It was darker and had wood grained walls. Always seemed strange to me, and not a place I should go, even to explore.

I don't recall feeling overly welcome in Mama and Papa Wise's house. I don't really know why. Except that they were REALLY old and not really up to handling young children.

They kept bees. I know that much. But I don't recall their honey. Or any of their bee-keeping stuff.

They literally lived next door to me, and yet, I feel I know nothing about them.
They were parents to my most beloved family member, and yet I know nothing about them.
And have no way to know more.
My Paw is dead. I don't think my Maw is dead yet, but she's not my Maw anymore... and we didn't get along in the last decade at all anyway. She was... very abusive in a way she could never understand... so I finally just walked away from her, as I did with the rest of my family.

And no one else I know... remembers them at all. They are gone.

So this is a memory that is truly lost. What I can't recover myself from the depths of my child-hood mind... is lost.

Papa Wise and Mama Wise each had grey hair. Of course. They were that old.
Mama Wise was plump but not obese. She was sturdy and worked hard her whole life.
Mama Wise gave me a few of her old skirts, a pair of her shoes, a few of her gardening baskets, a blouse and a head-wrap or three to play with once. I used them for that 'Cinderella' performance I mentioned in the other post. :/ I don't remember anything else from her... not even her voice. I don't remember her ever saying a word to me...

And I remember less of Papa Wise.
He was nearly bald, had the funny glasses, always dour-faced, but seemed content. He was very thin... coughed a lot and I only ever remember seeing him sitting down.

They both got very sick by the time I was 7-8. They were put in hospital beds and kept by a combination of my Maw, other family members and Hospice people I think. Then Papa Wise died. And Maw and Paw had Mama Wise moved up to their house, to stay in her hospital bed in the large den of their house.

Mama Wise... in those last years.. maybe one or two past Papa Wise's death... was not a person in my life. She was just a body in a hospital bed who didn't speak or really do anything at all. She just laid there, people fed her and cleaned her... and I recall laying on the side of her bed occasionally and her petting at me and calling me by names that weren't mine. She had no clue who I was. Ever.

And then one day, she died too. I remember my young cousin and I pitching a hell of a fit about her dying. Which seems odd now... because we barely knew her. She had just been ... always there. So I guess that's really why it hurt so much. I remember when they finally took her bed from that room. It felt so huge... and empty.

And then they were both gone.

They had a son that was my Grandfather's older brother who had died at age 2. His name was Luther. His portrait, that of an infant in barely any color (very old photography) had been in a special frame that was domed outward from the image... and it had hung in their house in the den over the piano for as long as I could remember. Years later when I moved into that house, it would remain there. I never dreamed of moving it. In fact, I never even considered moving it. I never knew Luther, of course... but he was my grandfather's brother. And he had lived briefly in that house. I would never have taken the image down, tho it was a bit creepy to me to have a portrait of a long-dead baby in my house.

I get fuzzy on which of my great uncles and aunts were which. But I am pretty sure my Paw's sister was Nauvaree. I don't know if I spelled that right, but it sounds like I spelled it. "Naw-va-ree". And yeah, that's a weird freaking name... but it was her name.

And I don't know if the great uncle... James... I'm remembering was his Paw's brother, or Maw's brother.
James Wise? ... no... James Knight? I think he was Maw's.

But last week when these names came up in conversation for the first time in years... I didn't remember James even. So I guess I've remembered Something more at least.

James Wise? ... I am not sure. I'm really not.

I guess some things really are lost. And what can I do about that? ...