I have to preface this story by admitting that, in fairness, I’m sure I didn’t know Grandpa as well as many of the other Friedens. He died just as I was going into high school. I was only 13. I remember that day, and the ensuing funeral. My dad had just moved us home to Illinois so he could be closer to his dad… and so I could begin high school the way that he and Mom did. I remember that funeral was the first time I had ever been so sorrowfully sad that I wasn’t sure I could breathe. It was the first time I ever saw my dad cry. And until this year when my Mom joined Grandpa in heaven, it was the last. I was sad for my daddy, but, honestly, I was more sad for me. And it surprised me a little how sad a person could be. For some reason – I never got a chance to ask her why – Grandma had me be a pallbearer. As a result, I was in the room when they closed the casket. I remember every detail about that moment. I remember the floral vertical pattern wall paper, and the old fashioned couch. I remember Grandma coming over to me as I fell on the floor weeping. I cried so hard my ribs were bruised. I have no memory of anything else that summer. Fifteen years later, I made a hasty exit from that same room before they closed the casket where my mom’s old body lay. I hate that room.

Now, all these years later, after losing Grandma too, I’m reflecting a little bit on what it was exactly about Grandma, and Grandpa, and the Farm that made it so hard to let go of all those years ago. Admittedly, my memory is foggy and childish and rambling, but this was Grandpa Frieden to me:

Grandpa Frieden loved me. He told me so, but that’s not why I know. I know because he patted my head. All the time. He let me carry the table scraps to the hog lot in a 5 gallon bucket. I was no bigger than that bucket. It was too cold to be out without a jacket. There were too many stones and stickers and too much slop near the pen for me to be barefoot. I was too little to carry that heavy bucket. But I always went barefoot, there was no time to put on a jacket, and I wanted to carry that bucket. And he let me. He walked s-l-o-w and steady next to me. He would sit in the chair in the front room. He let me sit on his lap. He wanted to go to sleep, you could tell. Grandma told me it was time for a nap. He stayed awake and answered all of my questions. I had lots of questions. He never raised his voice at me. Well… not true. He did twice.

One time, I was about 8. He was teaching me to drive on a clutch lawn mower. My other grandpa wouldn’t let me – but Grandpa let me learn the first time I asked. I learned the clutch. I was cocky (still am, I suppose). I put it in the Highest Gear (3rd??) and went for a spin around the house. I barely missed mowing down Grandma’s garden. I angled around the hog feeders where the strawberries grew. I felt the grape vines on my shoulder as I passed them. And then, I came around the corner. Grandpa could see me now from where he was standing by the mailbox near the road. He hollered “slow ‘er down” over the engine of the Case Mower. I was full speed ahead towards the big gas tank. I heard him tell me to slow down, but I was afraid. The lane between the gas tank, the big blue spruce and the house was narrow, and I suddenly could not remember how to slow down. I came so close to losing my leg, that the white dust from the gas tank was embedded in my skin. I somehow managed to only scratch my arm on my dad’s big blue spruce (if you knew where this was, you too would wonder how I didn’t run into it). Finally, I came to an abrupt halt into Grandma’s rose bush. I was so glad to stop, I didn’t mind the thorns. Grandpa yelled at me. In retrospect, it is the only time I ever saw him afraid. He loved me and I scared him. Bad.

The only other time, I’m almost too ashamed to tell. My baby sister Michelle and I were in the front room on the floor in front of the TV. We were fighting like banshees. In my defense, she bit me so hard I was actually bleeding, but I hit her back. Hard. And more than once. She screamed so loud you’d have thought she was dying. I think Grandma DID think she was dying, because she started crying in the kitchen and said, “Floyd, go in there.” And he did. And he was not happy. And he put us on the couch. He raised his voice without yelling, and told us about being sisters. And that it wasn’t right to fight. We both cried. Grandpa didn’t speak to us at dinner. We were so upset. We stayed up all night with Doris eating sliced raw potatoes and whispering in the kitchen. And the next morning, when the sun started to come up, he let me carry the slop bucket to the hog lot. He walked slowly beside me, his overalls and boots always in view. He lifted the heavy bucket from my hands and threw the slop over the fence. And said nothing about yesterday.

Grandpa let me ride next to him on the tractor. He answered all of my questions about the Aunts, and Uncles, and the corn and beans, and when do you plant it, and why was corn growing where beans did last year, and why do you call that milk weed, and why do you put dirt in the cane juice, and how do the bees get in the hay bales, and why are hornets different from bees, and where did you go to school, and every thing else under the sun. He taught me to call the cows. They never came to me once, but I didn’t know it until I was much older because he’d always call them with me. They only came to him. I never told my mom, but he let me cut cane with a machete the size of my leg.

Once, I got an ear infection from the Mississippi River. Grandma and Grandpa took me to Iowa City. It was a terrible infection. I had to have tubes put in my ears. The infection had made me so sick that I couldn’t eat. Grandma decided I could try some Sprite and a little watermelon, and I couldn’t even keep that down. You know you are sick when you can’t eat Sprite and watermelon. I refused, however, to take the antibiotics they prescribed me. I just couldn’t. Grandpa sat at the kitchen table watching Grandma beg me to swallow the pills. She was simultaneously pricking Grandpa’s finger to check his blood sugar. He spoke softly, but firm, “Andi, if I can take this needle, you can take this medicine.” He took a piece of bread from the bag on the table; he carefully spread butter on it; then peanut butter over the top. He put the pill inside and folded it over. He said, “eat it, you won’t taste a thing.” And I only tasted the butter & peanut butter – a taste, incidentally, I disliked immensely (but I didn’t mention it at the time). He made me butter and peanut butter medicine bread twice a day for days. It is the only time in my life I ever saw him prepare food.

My favorite, most treasured time with Grandpa, however, was spent on the swing, out under the big Maple Tree in the yard. I must have sat there alone with him for hundreds of hours. Many years later, at 29, on the way to say goodbye to my mom for the last time, I was riding with my dad in the car – and for the First time it occurred to me to ask him, “Where WERE you all those summers I was at the Farm??.”

Grandpa and I would sit and talk on that swing until someone said we had to come in. And OH he told me stories. He talked about Jeannie’s curly hair. He loved Jeannie’s hair. He said that my hair reminded him of hers when I was born. He talked about my Dad. He told me all about him when he was little – he was so proud. He told me stories about All of his kids… when they were little mostly, but also as they grew. He told me about big storms, and Heinz ketchup, and pickles. He told me about animals, and plants, and the River, and the Bay. His favorite stories to tell, however, always came up when we were talking about His Twins. I probably made him tell me a million times. He said my twin brothers were wild and reminded him of His Twins. The funny thing is, all of the stories about “the twins” were about them getting in TROUBLE. But he never told them with any hint of displeasure. He Loved those stories. He told them as a Proud Father. He told me that the twins were quite handy with a ball pein hammer. Were they 3? Were they 4? They couldn’t really talk yet, when they took out 4 windows in the new Mercury with that thing. From inside the car. They took turns. He told (for the millionth time!) how they bathed each other one at a time in new OIL out in the barn, all dressed in their Sunday Suits before church, after they had just been washed, and all dressed up to go. They still had to go to church. His eyes lit up the most at that one. He always chuckled, just a little. He told me once, when I was a little older, that when he was faced with the responsibility of taking a switch to the twins for the oil bathing business… he almost couldn’t… because inside, he was laughing too hard. Finally, dinner (that’s lunch) or supper would be ready, and we’d have to head in to the house. Grandpa would always say the blessing. He prayed soft and strong, and in that quivering and reverent voice that only good old Baptists can really pull off. And I will tell you, God answered those prayers. I was blessed in abundance.

I’m grateful that my Grandpa loved me enough to talk to me. To teach me. To help me see who it was my parents hoped I would be. My grandpa was a lot of things to a lot of people. But to me, he was my first friend.