Good Boy

When I was in elementary school, I used to think of myself as a “Good Boy.” Capital G Good, capital B Boy. It sounds silly, but I still think that label applies—though of course, the definition of “Good Boy” has changed a bit over the years. Used to mean “Good boy” was "a kid who listens to the adults." When the yard duties told us not to play helicopter, I’d strut over to people and tell them that they were breaking the rules. I wasn’t exactly loose, to say the least. And it wasn’t as if this... adherence to rules was spawned from some dedication of mine to another “high minded” ideal. I just liked to get people in trouble.

My grandmother, for all her years, acquired no visible flaws, at least in my eyes. She was quiet, kind, and most of all, lively for her age. A reserved woman when there were guests in the house, and an absolute comedian when her friends came by. Her image was made all the more ridiculous by the nature of her skin—leathery, brown, and liver-spotted—while ours were at least 10 shades lighter and three times less pockmarked. For most of my life, my grandmother raised me. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that I only started to really interact with my parents after her death, but I don’t blame them or her for that. The tradition has always been for the old to raise the young, and in my family’s case, grandma was just older. Plus, it’s not like the financial crisis was a good time for anyone.

Not, of course, that I knew any of this at the time. I knew bits and pieces, sure, like when mom sat me down and asked me if I wanted her to stay at home, or how I noticed that we almost always, always had a quick little garage sale to go through right before we visited Shane’s house, or drove back to Davis, or whatever have you—though of course that may have been more of just a “thrifty mom” thing. I’m glad they did it, though. I don’t resent them for that. God knows my parents couldn’t spend very much time with me when they had a mortgage to pay off, but I remember thinking then the fact that my parents never played any board games with me was the worst thing in my life. I know some people in my life who still think that way, and they’re not in good places.

I have to assume that we all thought she had more time. When she died, we were all sad. Of course. And it’s not like I can forget the funeral. But as heavy and heartbreaking the memory is… I find myself moving on. What I best recall of her is a scene where the two of us were walking in the cool summer morning for what I now know of course was only an hour or two, but which at the time felt like just under half a day. It’s not something that I’ve written about at length in the past, but it’s certainly something I’ve had enough experience reminiscing about to have the motions down. Three essays now, I think. Not counting the drafts.

Sometime around six or seven A.M, my grandmother would wake me up, make me honeyed eggs, and drag me out the door to walk with her around the neighborhood. We’d do what was probably a 3 mile circuit of the local park, Korematsu Elementary School, and one of the tree-lined arcades by our house, near the overpass. I wasn’t enthusiastic about these walks at first, owing to my grandmother’s slow (though steady) speed, but we began to have a rhythm, in time. I, in my bountiful youth, would race my grandma down the street and then wait for her to catch up; all so I would again be able to win a race I knew I would win. Of course, the cheering and praise from Grandma only encouraged it. This would go on until I got tired.

Towards the end of the summer, though, I realized that I liked the parts when I was tired more than the parts when I wasn’t. I liked talking to her, and listening to her talk back. I learned a lot from her. She talked about how she grew up, how her childhood was different from mine, how she enjoyed her days of summer, and how she wanted me to do well in school because she never got the chance to. She told me about how she spent her days at home and how she enjoyed them, and I told her about the owl boxes up in the trees—how if she squinted, we could see the babies in the back. Sleeping.

I’d like to think I’m a Good Boy. I probably will for a long time. But what that term means to me in five years? Ten years? Twenty years? I don’t know—I can’t know. For now, the only thing I can think to do is to just keep plodding ahead. After all: if Grandma did it, why can’t I?