Purple Rhododendrons

"He believed everything she did was magic. Not because he said it, but you could see it in the way he looked at her, like the Earth chose to plant itself inside her heart and only grow from there."

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He was angular—sharp jawline, pointy nose arched like a curved bridge, and a tall stature that I’d climb like a tree. I was just a girl, looking up at a lovely man in a flannel button-up and a cowboy hat. He wasn’t affectionate towards my grandmother, but he made up for it with duty and a crooked smile. Three novels he wrote were pinned and stacked together in a box inside his office. I was amazed.

"Teach me, teach me!"

I’d clap my hands and jump up and down. He’d pick me up by my armpits and sit me on his lap, revealing the tap-tap machine in front of me. A world was inside his fingertips as I’d watch him tap-tap-tap-ching, tap-tap-tap-ching his way into the start of a story. The tiny black letters always punching assertively against the white pages. And no big deal if he made a typo because there was a petite bottle of white-out in his drawer awaiting its noble duties.

Behind me were canvas after canvas, a melting pot of various deer, woodlands, and prairie houses—all the things that come from a cowboy’s mind, painted by sun-spotted hands. And how he’d tell me stories of riding horseback across the country at ten years old, making money helping out on various farms that were sprinkled in hay. He told me about the time he became a professional bull rider at the ripe age of eighteen and how he got to be John Wayne’s ranch foreman as he pulled the pictures from his shelf to show me. And how he was reluctant to tell me that his mother died giving birth to him—all the lives an old man has had the pleasure and tragedy of knowing.

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My Opa and John Wayne (my mom is the baby on the horse)

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My grandma was always swallowed by purple rhododendrons. I’d hear another Italian opera song sung in her German accent from the other room as she’d put prop more rhododendrons in a vase. The kitchen always wafted with the smell of lentils and onion. And as the sun would set, a couple of flowers would begin to bow their heads in descent. But when he’d wake up, he’d walk me out to help pick another one. A day was never missed. And God, I hate him for it.

I was never much swayed by fantasies of marriage and a tall-statured husband parading around the house, but he made it look like the juice was worth the squeeze. Because if this is how it’s supposed to be, why wouldn’t I want this? How happy my grandmother was, swirling around, singing all of her favorites, cooking his favorites. She’d giggle and joke, and her laugh sounded like little angel bells ringing throughout the house. He believed everything she did was magic. Not because he said it, but you could see it in the way he looked at her, like the Earth chose to plant itself inside her heart and only grow from there.

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I was fourteen, sitting at the coffee table with a pen in hand, writing him a goodbye poem. His skin was colored in shades of daffodils, his eyes just the same. And the man that used to stand tall like a tree was laid down like a pile of crumbled October leaves. The back of his hands were pure bone, his skin painted on like papier-mâché. When he’d move his mouth, his jaw was as sharp as the cliff of a carved mountain.

The sunset would come, and another rhododendron would begin to hang her head to descend on the kitchen counter. He could barely open his eyes anymore, but he requested to speak with me. They rolled him out on the back porch so he could sit next to me on the bench swing. The sun was getting to its final resting place, the gold plated clouds painted his skin colored in farewells. He wore that yellow like a crown of glory, I’ll be damned, that yellow never wore him. We didn’t say much. We sat there quietly for some time. The light was nothing but a silent burn that lit my eyes on fire until I cried into his shoulder, wrapping my teenage arms around his dying body. He lightly grabbed my hand, laid a kiss on top of my golden head and said, “Grab one for your Omi, will ya?” nodding his head toward the purple cloud of flowers in the backyard.

That’s all you’d hear him say to everyone weeks before his passing.

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I’d never seen clouds part for the moon the way they did the night he passed. I’d never put a flower in a vase so delicately. I’ve never met a man like my grandfather. Opa, I’d call him. I wish I would have. If I did, he’d be here now. He’d be setting another flower in one of my vases in the kitchen, and I think I just might be singing my own versions of my own long-loved melodies.

I hope you know you’re worth it. You are soft and kind and lovely. I bet you’d sing beautifully, and I bet your laugh would sound like little bells, and I bet a man would see the world in your heart and plant as many flowers as you needed to feel loved. I imagine you’ve been left as a not-enough kind of girl or a too-loud or too-ridiculous kind of girl. Storms are named after you in a parallel universe, and lightning only strikes when it rains. You don’t need flowers; you are a woman of magic and soil and seed. But oh, I wonder how you’d grow with a rhododendron man.