Buried Treasure

                             Buried Treasure
         It wasn't the normal color outside. The sky usually presents itself as an indigo-blue, free of any sort of debris to taint its natural, quite pretty shade. It is the kind of blue that you can taste, even smell, when the sun rests its rays upon the canvas of the earth at certain moments of its daily venture. But today was different. The sky now resembled an old, decaying willow tree, and limbs stretched toward each ragged cloud splintering and cracking through the winter sky. The storm clouds were receding and returning with painful tenacity, tempting the variable sky and shrouding it in unmistakable darkness. Darkness so moist, so dense, the bleakness of the evening even seemed to smirk at the last remaining light in the corner of the westward sky. I looked toward the horizon and took a sip of my cold amber ale. The sun had long before set in day, the light long gone; not even a remote sliver of the moon was visible. The night was certainly getting colder. Somewhat scared and completely alone, my senses askew, an overwhelming feeling of sadness crept silently onto my brain, strangling each remaining vessel of blood, slowly killing me. It was a pathetic feeling for someone to feel. Was I dying? Well, certainly some part of me was... I dropped the lush white flowers on the hillside before me. My eyes pressed shut and I slumped my head down, fixating my mind on nothing but the nothingness, a presence so inescapably alive around me. I then looked up to stare out across the city:
         The world always appeared so impeccable from distances. Each aspect of the view was surreal. The way the trees on the horizon were seemingly untouched by the massive storm made me envious. They stood strong and firm, as if ready to defend themselves against unwanted wind and rain. They were powerful creatures, and I was only a frail, lifeless being. Far from my vantage point, I now noticed the freeways and roads a couple miles away. Cars, mere red and white lights, glowed from afar, moving at what appeared to be incredulous speeds on the thoroughfares. This city was alive in the midst of a storm; so alive and so grand! There was constant movement and constant breath. The city was breathing before my very eyes. And I wished to take part in those feelings: I wished I could feel invincible as the glory of the image that was laid out before my very eyes. I longed for that breath.
         It was the first time I had lost someone dear to me. Someone who had actually passed on to another life. And as I searched for purpose, while I longed for reason, I found nothing. Reason, in my particular case, was a farfetched ideal. When something occurs suddenly there is little time to reason, or think, and this is why we as humans begin a search for buried treasure, only to find the treasure was never buried nor even treasure at all: The treasure being an answer. It had long before transformed into something far less obvious than any tangible object; an omniscient something that knows far more than we do, only to know less than what we expect of it. The pain I felt was something undoubtedly real, but my quest to decipher the tragedy of events that had swiftly sucker punched my life was the even more painful, invisible demon that now had me under its control. Yet, tragedy was only half of what had occurred in my life. This was a catastrophe. But by eventually accepting this tragedy in my life, I hoped to mature.
         In many cultures there are “rights of passage” that the males must go through to attain the status of a man. I had studied this in history back in middle school and it was somehow instantly retrieved from the recesses of my elastic brain. Maybe this was just my right of passage? My sort of test to gain valuable experience along the roads of my life. Maybe I was just meant to grow up faster than my peers. Regardless, I remained fixated on keeping what I felt to myself. I hadn't gone to any therapy, nor talked to anyone really. It was just something I dealt with. And when people asked me about it, or gave condolences, I would respond with a monotone, “Thanks”. But while I uttered the words and put on a fake smile, I really wanted to grab them by whatever they were wearing and ask, “You don't know how it feels.”  I knew something had undeniably happened and flipped my world upside down. My grandfather, whom I had loved and cared for dearly, had passed on quite unexpectedly. He had simply slipped off the earth into unreachable, untouchable place of nothingness. He was gone now whether I was ready to accept it or not. Funny enough, it was one Monday morning in homeroom when my best friend at the time, Harrison, asked me something that began to change my outlook. “Why do you miss him so much,” he asked somewhat bluntly.
        He must have been talking to someone else. I had never thought of the specifics of my longing, solely the absence of his physical presence. And when I thought about it I became even sadder, realizing that I had never condemned my grandfather and my special bond as something of profoundness. “Tucker? Uh, hello? I didn't mean to upset you,” he spoke again.
         This time with greater regard for my well-being. But it wasn't anything he had done, it was my mere disregard for really remembering my grandfather for who he was as a person. If he was so special to me, why hadn't I immediately thought of every thing I missed about him. Well, I was  only fifteen at the time, and fifteen year olds definitely take things for granted. But that is no excuse. And as I searched for every possible justification to the position I was in, I realized that only by accepting my loss would I be able to come to terms with my reality. It wouldn't be until I accepted it, that I would be able to look back fondly on memories (granted the given nostalgia and sadness). I didn't know what to say back to Harrison as I was having more dialogue with myself than I was my peer. But I had to muster some sort of response.
         I responded simply: “It's fine Harry. I'm not upset. I'm just a little in my own head right now. You got my mind racing a bit.”
         My mind wasn't just moving swiftly. At that moment it was digging deep, and deeper into the farthest reaches of my Hippocampus, attempting to draw any memory of my grandfather. I didn't want to feel lost anymore. I spoke sternly to Harrison: “I'm gonna' take off for the day, man.”
         I went home and thought the rest of the day, often smiling at joyful memories of my grandfather, but even more often tearing at these same thoughts. And for that while I thought of him, and I thought of me. I thought of who he was, what he looked like, and who I was to him:
      “Get that shovel out of your hand,” my grandfather would often say to me as my fork slipped into the wrong crease of my hand. This apparently made me resemble a worker shoveling away on a chain-gang. “Sorry,” I would always respond, with my head slumped downwards as if I were going to make small talk with my mashed potatoes and peas. On the occasion, I would look back up at the handsome old man with crystal blue eyes and wonder why it was so goddam important to hold my fork the right way. But that was a rarity, for I knew it was out of love. I respected this particular man as a divinity. It wasn't the fact that he could speak so eloquently about the beauty of any day, or how he actually followed the “golden rule”. No, it wasn't even how lovingly he took care of my grandmother. No it wasn't anything of those things at all. It was all held behind those crystal blue eyes. Everything you needed to know. One look into those deep blue eyes and you would see compassion in its rawest state. Boppa was what I called him. I guess Grandpa is sometimes too hard to say when you are a child learning names. So, Boppa it was.
         My memory was cut short by a slamming door. I saw my father walk across the hall and asked him how the morning was going. He seemed to be flustered, which was no surprise, since he worked long hours and overtime often. My father wore long khaki trousers with freshly shined shoes. Shoes that were so shiny, you could cook raw meat with the light that reflected off them. On his torso he wore a long sleeve collared shirt with a plaid design. His usual morning attire. Yet, something looked different about him today. It could've been my mind working in strange ways, but as he scurried about the house looking for his keys, he moved and looked like my grandfather. Something in his demeanor had changed. It was a small change. Or was it appearance? Some aspect of my father appeared differently to me. Now, my dad began closing in on the handle of doorknob to make his exit to the world of work. As he reached for the handle his arm stretched out to full length. This slightly pulled his shirt up his arm and that was when I saw it in all of its splendor. My grandfather's watch fit so perfectly upon my father's brawny wrist. Its gold shimmered in the low morning light. A shimmer so profound it sent chills down my spine. I smiled. “Dad!” I raised my voice thinking his morning frenzy would drown out the noise of my voice.
      He turned and stood tall gazing at me with curiosity and impatience. A look that told me he wanted to hear what I had to say quickly but not so quickly for me to think he did not have time for me. He continued to gaze at me and I looked up at him with the same curiosity I saw in his eyes. “Is that Boppa's watch?” I asked him, although I already knew the answer.
      My father looked back at me with a strange mix of emotion. I assumed as much. His look, was the most bewildering stare of astonishment, happiness, and sadness. It was a kind of  half smile, half “I still have tears in my eyes but I'm going to be alright.” He was awestruck as he stared and it seemed he hoped I would say something first. It had only been a few days, but by seeing this watch on my father's arm I now knew that he was as equally affected as I from tragedy. I was no longer alone. I was no longer lost.  “Yes it is,” he finally responded. “I'm glad you can recognize things like this. I know this has been hard for you Tucker, and it's probably been even harder for me. But I want you to know that our lives will move on, and we will get through this as a family. I want you to have the watch. I was waiting for a while to give it to you, but now seems like a fitting time.” My father unhitched the watch from his left wrist and clasp it tightly to his chest. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. I could tell he was saying something to my grandpa in his head just by the way his eyes shut. They pressed  sincerely.
         I wasn't even listening to his words. As I saw him extend his arm to hand me the watch, my thoughts ran deeper. I focused, just as my dad had done, on my grandfather and of each and every way I would make him proud by wearing his shimmering treasure.
        I had hoped to mature. I had hoped to discover myself through a right of passage. My right of passage wasn't a physical journey or a test of wits, no. It was my enduring of longing and suffering. I had learned so much in such a small amount of time. Yet, I still felt major feelings of sadness/ But as I looked down at my grandfather's treasure, I felt happy. It wasn't so much how it physically appeared, rather how the way it shimmered reminded me of him. Oh, how the watch shimmered! In my mind it was my grandfather reminding me that he is just an eye movement away at all times. My omniscient something.
         The next day I drove back to the hillside where it had all began. I remembered the last time I was here and remembered looking out over the city during a storm. I recollected how I felt and what I had thought. Though only a couple days prior, I felt like a completely different person. The air still had weight to it, but it was a bearable weight. The sky today was its normal blue, and I could indeed taste it; the crisp blue air. And this time as I looked out onto the city, there certainly was not a nothingness eating me alive. There was something present this time. Something that told me that everything would be alright. Something that told me that my life would move on without him. It was so basic, yet so profound. I turned my wrist to check the time and smiled.