Watermelon Tears

This is my latest effort in the Indie Ink Writing Challenge.  I was given a writing prompt by Amy LaBonte which will follow. 

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“I think we ought to find somewhere to put my dad.  I’m so happy we’ve been able to have him here with us, I know it hasn’t been easy for you, but we have to focus on Toby now.”

“Jess, Toby loves his grandpa.  Probably more than he loves either of us.  Isn’t the next few months going to be tough enough for him without taking away the person he loves most?  None of this is easy and none of it is going to be easy.  It all sucks.  I don’t know what we’re going to do except everything we can to make our son as happy and comfortable as we can, pray a lot and thank God for my insurance.”

With tears in her eyes, Jessica Schmidt hugged her husband Tim’s neck, so hard she feared he’d be the next one to spend time in the hospital.  The past year had been filled with hospitals and hospices, as Jessica first lost her mother to pancreatic cancer and then watched her proud, strong father, be reduced by bone cancer to life in a wheelchair. 

At 79, and faced with life minus his wife of fifty-seven years, he’d refused chemo or radiation to help him in his fight.  The constant pain left him cranky, while the devastating loss of his best friend only fueled his bitterness, anger, and confusion.  Despite his protestations that he was perfectly capable of staying in the house he and Esther had shared in Kansas, Jessica had convinced her father to move in with her family in Boise. Troy, Jessica’s older son, was rarely home.  High school, sports and friends kept him away unless he was hungry or needed a place to sleep.  Tim’s job required long hours, so Grandpa Frank’s most frequent companions were Jessica and 6 year old Toby. 

When Frank moved in, Toby was his parents’ primary concern.  He was as wild and rambunctious as a 6 year boy could be, not the best match for an elderly man of poor health and even more fragile psyche. 

To the surprise of everyone, however, rather than being upset by having to share time and attention with his grandpa, the situation was the catalyst for an amazing transformation.  Never one to sit still for very long or to behave himself at mealtime or in church, Toby seemed to mature overnight.  He’d sit for hours with his grandfather, reading to him from his Dr. Seuss books, watching television with him, and insisting that he be the one to help with grandpa’s dishes, newspaper, books and whatever else he required.  When the Schmidt family arrived at church on Sunday mornings, it was Toby who pushed his grandpa’s wheelchair, held doors, anything and everything he could do to help.

When the news came that Toby had relapsed, it hit the family like a runaway locomotive.  As a baby, the chubby little blonde-haired boy had developed tumors in his abdomen.  An aggressive treatment plan was implemented by his doctors, surgeries were performed, and the crisis seemed to have been averted.  Nearly five years after Toby’s bill of health had been declared clean, however, the unthinkable happened. A tummy ache wasn’t food poisoning and it wasn’t the flu. The tumors had returned, this time spreading much more quickly and aggressively, attacking organs that had survived the initial illness unscathed.  The prognosis wasn’t good.  If Toby survived to see his 7^th birthday, doctors would consider it a minor miracle. 

Tim and Jessica met with their pastor to best determine a course of action.  School would be starting soon.  At this point, Toby was healthy enough to attend, but that wouldn’t last.  Should he start school at all, or should the family treat the last few months of his life like one long Make-A-Wish Foundation weekend?  Disneyland, ballgames, camping and whatever else he wanted to do made sense to Tim, but when they sat down and had the talk with their son, he shrugged and said he really just wanted to be in school with his friends.  He’d been looking forward to 1^st grade so much.  He wanted to be big like Troy, he wanted to play high school football like his older brother, and those things couldn’t happen without finishing 1^st grade!  Like climbing a ladder, grandpa had told him.  Take one rung at a time and you’ll get to the top. 

The finality of his situation hadn’t, couldn’t sink into Toby’s young mind.  He was sick, sure.  He hurt all the time, just like grandpa, but despite watching grandma and his mom’s cat, Harpo be buried, he was much too young to actually die.  That didn’t happen to kids!

Tim and Jessica both flirted with nervous breakdowns, Troy started drinking whenever he had the opportunity, and Frank, impossibly, got progressively grumpier.  It was only Toby’s interminable exuberance, happiness and curiosity that made life bearable for any of them.  He’d been given a death sentence, yet he couldn’t be happier. 

A week before the start of school, on a sunny afternoon that found grandpa and little grandson both relatively pain-free, they shared a slab of watermelon on the back porch, Toby peppering his grandpa with the usual barrage of unpredictable questions.

“Grandpa, why is watermelon so sweet?”

“It has sugar in it, champ.”

“Like a cookie?”

“No, not like in a cookie, that’s a different kind of sugar.  The sugar in a watermelon is like in a strawberry, not like in a candy bar or cookie.”

Toby didn’t seem entirely satisfied with the answer, but there were too many questions to be asked to dwell on fruit.

“Why do I get wet when I go swimming?”

Concealing his annoyance and popping a chunk of watermelon into his mouth, Frank spit a seed at the little boy’s head and laughed.

“Because you’re in water, silly goose! And don’t ask me why water is wet, I already told you only your father can answer questions like that!”

Rubbing the spot where the seed had hit him, feigning injury, Toby took two huge bites and looked up at Frank.

“Do you miss grandma?”

Inhaling deeply through his nostrils and exhaling through puffed cheeks, Frank reached down and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Oh, Toby, you have no idea.  I miss her very, very much.  I loved her so much.  And she loved you so much.  I bet you miss her too, don’t you?”

“Mommy told me that grandma is in heaven now, so she gets to sit on a cloud and play music and sing and she must be really happy.  I miss her, but not too much, because I’ll be with her soon.”

Frank felt a lump form in his throat and the all too familiar sting of tears as he struggled to speak.

“W-what?  Why do you say soon?”

Looking down at the ground, kicking a rock, Toby thought for a moment before answering his grandfather.

“Troy told me that I’m really sick, I mean I know I’m really sick, and I try not to be sad about it because everybody is sad enough already about grandma and Harpo and your legs not working so good and I just want everybody to be happy for a change.  I figure grandma might be lonely, and maybe God made me sick so I can go to heaven to be with her.”

No longer able to stifle his emotions, Frank wept openly now, head in his hands.  He hadn’t allowed himself to dwell too much on Toby’s illness, on the prospect of having to bury his own grandson, but it seemed the boy had already come to terms with the future in a way only a child can.

Standing up to give his grandpa a hug, Toby asked another question that had been bugging him.

“Is heaven really like that?  Do you just sit on a cloud?  Or do they have games there and toys and stuff?  I mean I’ll be happy to be with grandma and everything, but I know she likes to take naps and I won’t have any friends there but her, so what will I do?”

Composing himself as best he could, Frank returned Toby’s hug and pulled the boy up onto his lap.

“The way I figure it, heaven is like a one-way trip to your favorite place.  Whatever that might be, whether it’s going to the zoo or a Jazz game with your dad or going swimming, think of that one thing or that one day that when you were doing it, you wished it would never, ever end.  I think, well I hope, that’s what heaven will be like.  Think of a day like that, but it really never does end.  How does that sound?”

Toby took a big bite of the watermelon, right down to the rind, chewed slowly and thoughtfully, a puzzled look on his face.

“What’s the matter, champ?”

“Well, if grandma is in heaven, and heaven is like you say, my favorite place or day that lasts forever, then why isn’t grandma with us here, right now?”

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My prompt was "a one-way trip to your favorite place."  I challenged Wendryn with the prompt "Your dream concert.  Any artist/band, any venue, any time.  Tell me all about it."  Her response is here.