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Show 10-8 Soon I began to realize that all the stories she told, all the memories she took out to examine and fondle were centered around Paul. He was part of every story she told, and the other three children were only incidental. She told me about the day he started school, broke his first tooth, fell off the horse that lived in the pasture where our house later stood. She described his birth, his baptism in the Presbyterian church when he cried and Joe and Katherine joined in. She talked of Christmases and birthdays when Paul was small, remembering each gift and every small saying of the little boy. I remembered her once saying that all of her children were precious to her, each in a different way. Joe because he was the first, Katherine because she was the first girl, Paul because he came after ten years of waiting and John because he was the baby. But now the others were all but forgotten. She seemed to have only one child and she was reliving for him his childhood and his school years, all the life he would ever know. I began to listen to her, to try to piece together all she was saying with my own memories of Paul: his music, his voice singing the popular songs, the way he teased me, his reckless driving which John had inherited, the smell of the lotion he put on his hair. I looked at the pictures she took down and looked at again and again, his slim handsome face, the slicked back hair and tiny mustache, the full lips and dark eyes. I had never though of him as handsome, much preferring my father's blond, fair coloring and big embrace. Paul had dimmed for me into a faint memory but now I began to wonder about him. What had he been like? Had he been afraid to leave home? Did he cry when he was hurt in that ferocious battle that killed him? What did he leave behind that he would miss? Grandmother did not talk much of his death, only that he had died as a hero, one who was needed for his country. |