The one who is not here

Most of the time, grief is a hum in the background, a soft sorrow, almost (in a way that surprises me) comforting, like the thrum of rain at night. Sometimes it comes to me as a longing, even a sweet longing, like that ache you feel when you hear Joni Mitchell singing "Both Sides Now."But occasionally it is a sharp pain.Most of these arrows to the heart are predictable: the first Thanksgiving without, the first Christmas without, the first birthday without, the first book launch without. The six-month mark. I know these are coming, and I prepare myself. I note the day on the calendar. I give myself a talking to. Maybe I read a Mary Oliver poem. Maybe I power up Blanton Heights. I make sure I’ve got gin, vermouth and Campari in the cupboard. And I handle it.It’s unexpected that gets me.Yesterday, sitting on the floor with Henry, I listen to him recite the names of all the people in his life, the names he now knows, the people he loves and trusts. Until recently, he was a listener. Now he is a talker. And so he points at me and says “Wowo,” which is me, Lolo. His “Ls” are not quite there yet. And he says Dada and Mama. And then he says Gamma, which is his other grandmother, and Papa, which is his grandfather.And then, bam, it hits me: He has no word for Tom. He has no name for his other grandfather. And some day, when people ask him about his family, he will say, “I never knew my father’s father. He died when I was just a baby.”I wonder what Henry would have called Tom. But I don’t wonder what kind of a grandfather Tom would have been. I know. He would have delighted in this child as he delighted in our children. He would have loved him unconditionally as he did our children. He would have read to him--with funny accents and quirky voices—sang songs, played the piano, planted pumpkins for him in the garden, alerted him to the birds swooping around the backyard feeder, occasionally bored him with scientific facts (known in our household as the reading from The Hager Codex), watched him, with an open heart, as this child learned about the world, as this child became a boy, a man. Tom would have been an extraordinary grandfather.And that’s the awful grinding pain of it. That he didn’t get to be one.