Touchstone

By Sheila Robinson

There was a green and white ceramic horse on the corner shelf in my grandmother’s kitchen, posed for infinity in a proud equestrian leap. Standing about twelve inches high, its base formed a bank to save coins. My grandmother told me once that Grandpa brought it to her; I don’t remember where she said he got it. There was nothing remarkable about that horse, other than the space it shared in my grandmother’s kitchen on a shelf filled with salt and pepper shakers and bits and pieces of accumulated bric-a-brac.

Grandma would sit in her rocking chair next to that shelf, her sharp brown eyes surveying her domain from her favourite vantage point. From that chair she could keep an eye on the pots dancing on the stove and her ever present knitting on her lap, chat with visitors, and keep an eye on Grandpa, who she could see up in the back field through the kitchen window.

I spent twenty-five years winding my way up the path to “the house,” as it was called. Surrounded by the homes built by their offspring - my own father included - it was the house, and all the other houses around it were minor nodes; spores blown forth like dandelion seed from the main. In the wintertime, the path to the house would be single file only. Grandpa would keep it clear by beating it down, walking back and forth until it was open again, a narrow trail not designed for the clumsy or the unfamiliar. And of course, we skittered up over it as easily as we raced through the grass in the summertime.

In my childhood memory, it seems to me that they were always seventy, locked like the ceramic horse in that stage of life while I got to grow up, go away to school, come home again, get married. Through all the stages of my own life they remained unchanged, a familiar comfort, a touchstone in my life.

The window in the kitchen overlooked the back of the house; the back field stretching into a forest that went on to the mountains. It offered a view of the shed where Grandpa kept his scythe, his axe, probably an occasional bottle of whiskey, and his “cachet” of money squirrelled away for “just in case”.

If I were to survey the grandchildren, I bet we’d all say that none of us had ever entered that shed. Oh sure, we had all stood in the doorway at one time or another and peered in to the darkness, just checking to see if Grandpa was in there, and secure in the knowledge that Grandma could see us from where she was sitting in her rocking chair, and therefore safe from any possible wrongdoing or harm.

The back step leading into the kitchen of the house - like the shed, the fences, and the house itself - was built with Grandpa’s own two hands, no doubt under the careful watch of Grandma’s sharp brown eyes. It consisted of a landing, two narrow steps, and then another landing in front of the door. I suspect that the first landing was designed to scrape mud and dirt and snow off the wearer’s boots, or more specifically Grandpa’s boots, which were perpetually filthy from his treks out around the field and into the woods. But Grandpa would ignore this convenience and come straight through into the kitchen and make his way to his chair, a plain wooden chair next to the wood stove, and the water from his boots would puddle around it as he whittled a few more splits for the stove. Grandma would knit her eyebrows in his direction, as she often did, knowing that he would never change.

That first landing on the back step was built shallow and hollow, and as a result, made a very distinctive noise when it was stepped on. I would also be willing to bet that every one of the grandchildren can remember that familiar “thunk” from their childhood. If you happened to be sitting in the kitchen with Grandma, you could see her look toward the window to see who was coming in, the step noise announcing each and every visitor. If you were the one entering, your face would be the one framed by the glass at the exact moment the step gave off its hollow thunk of welcome.

For 25 years my grandmother sat in her rocking chair next to the corner shelf and knit endless streams of woollen socks and finger mitts, and cooked endless pots of fish and potatoes, and baked countless loaves of golden white bread. And for 25 years I made endless treks up the path to the house upon which my childhood was centred, my right foot hitting the landing like a good luck talisman, making that magical musical thunk.

I would be summoned on birthdays, expected on Christmas Eve, and welcomed every day, through every season of my life. And my grandparents remained unchanged.

Over the years I brought my treasures to that house, carried in deliveries from the store, cans of milk or soup borrowed or returned, news of report cards, childhood achievements, and the only man I’ve ever loved. Each treasure punctuated by the ritualistic thunk of announcement, and met with delight.

On the day of my grandmother’s funeral, I watched my grandfather lean over the grave and place a single red rose on the coffin. Turning around, he looked right at me and said “Well, well, well” as he lurched away, all locked up in grief and disbelief.

Later, we all made our way up the path to the house to sit with Grandpa on this day, the day the light in his heart ceased to shine.

That was the last day that the landing on the back step ever gave up its noise for me. With Grandma gone, it took me too long to be able to face that empty kitchen, and soon Grandpa was moved into a seniors home and the house torn down.

These days, my own home has a lovely front veranda with two wide steps leading up to the front door. My own steps are fitted with non-slip exterior rubber mats; safe, yet silent. The window of the front room overlooks the entrance, but is seldom used. Visitors arrive unnoticed until they ring the doorbell - sometimes twice, if we are busy.

Last night I made my way upstairs for the night, turning out lights and closing windows and locking doors. I silently opened my daughter’s bedroom door and stood for a moment, listening to the sound of a sixteen-year-old’s quiet breathing as she slept. Already she has faced the pain of loss, and has graced our doorway and dinner table with an array of nervous beaus; nervousness magnified by her own casual, easy-going manner. I looked up to the shelf above her bed, where the familiar green and white ceramic horse sits, pose unchanged, carried to me by my grandfather only days after the funeral. “For the little one,” he said, nodding toward my then three-year-old child. “For the little one.”

Could he have known, I wonder, the significance of that piece of coloured plaster to my perpetual memory of my grandmother? Or did he sit in his chair in the kitchen to pull his boots off and look with expectation toward the empty rocking chair and realize that, without the centrepiece, the periphery had to be dismantled, dusted off, given away. He pulled it off the shelf and brought it to my child unselfconsciously, the way he brought it to Grandma all those years ago, because he thought she would like it.

If I could go back to that kitchen, I would have a million questions for my grandma. I would pay closer attention to her stories, her hopes, her dreams, her self. I would sit with her in that unchanging kitchen with its familiar sights and smells and listen for the distinctive thunk that announced another visitor being framed in the kitchen window, profile scrutinized and then welcomed by those sharp brown eyes as the newcomer entered by the kitchen door.

We all carry pieces of the past with us into our uncertain futures. I inherited the sharp brown eyes, the genuine pleasure derived from the company of good people, and, on behalf of my daughter, the green and white ceramic horse that sat for so many years on the corner shelf in my grandmother’s kitchen. I have no way of knowing what my future will bring - generous portions of pleasure and pain, no doubt. But I carry with me the security of my childhood, and the memory of a strong woman who loved me best.