The Cedarville Review 2020

50 | THE CEDARVILLE REVIEW Watching him now, as he tosses the grass- stained baseball my way, my grandfather’s time-worn face flashes in my mind’s eye like a sunspot burnt into my vision, crinkled in the same expression of mixed contentment and concentration that my father wears. I remember the crows feet that nearly obscured my grand- father’s eyes as he squinted; the liver spots like freckles that crinkled merrily as he let loose a fierce grin; the clever wrinkles across his fore - head that expressed exactly how he felt, a sur- face broken in by many years of hardships and joys. Crumbling leather turns to sand beforemy eyes—the sand that my grandfather marched through in Normandy, stumbling to keep up with his comrades, desperate to escape the bullets that fell around his head like rain. I can only imagine the living hell that must have been, long before I was born—before even my father was born. And yet, we are all that remain long after the fact, even though my grandfather was the one who narrowly escaped death, and who continued to fight the memories of those days until the very end. He escaped once, but not forever. The last time I saw him was in a hospice room, eyes glazed, barely breathing. And yet, I still could see a hint of that same careworn smile I’d always known. My father laughs as hemisses the ball, forehead puckered in consternation as he stoops stiffly to retrieve it. If I squint closely enough, I can spot the first traces of crows feet at the corners of his eyes, the smallest of wrinkles rippling across his forehead like newly broken leather, not yet fully hardened and cracked with wear and sun- light. Year by year, the lean muscles in his arms have faded, the quickness of his fingers have dulled—and someday, I imagine, more than his wrinkles will come to resemble his own father’s faded form. It takes time. Someday, he will wear down, too. He turns forty-seven in two days, and the big half-a-century will follow too soon after. I can’t even begin to think of what will come next. I don’t want to, not now. Not when the reality of my grandfather’s aged face looms so near, larger than life, more than just a speck beyond the horizon now.