A thousand of him
I’m at the grocery store, standing in the produce department. An old Italian woman in a babooshka approaches my cart. She presses her face so close to Henry’s face that for a second his curious mug is eclipsed by her curious mug.
“He is a bootiful,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say.
“His face, it is a bootiful!”
“Thank you,” I say again.
“He is the only one?”
“Yes,” I reply. “He is my only one.”
“He is a so bootiful you could a make a thousand of him.”
I laugh, picturing a thousand Henrys.
“One day,” I say. “I might make another one of him. A thousand seems excessive.”
She kisses him on the top of his head, oblivious to my sarcasm and shuffles away to the cheese section. “Ciao ciao,” she says, her voice carrying over the clang of carts and drone of adult contemporary music.
Henry’s expression is hard to decipher. I think he’s wondering whether he’s supposed to know this woman. I explain to him what ciao ciao means and we continue shopping.
In the bread aisle I see her again. About 10 minutes has passed since the first encounter.
She immediately spots him and like a bee to clover she beats her wings to pick up speed and lands stealthily at my cart. She’s peering into his eyes before I even have a chance to say hello again.
“He is a bootiful,” she says.
“Yup, still beautiful,” I joke.
“His face, it is a bootiful!”
Just then I realize that she has no recollection of our first exchange. I know this drill. I know she’s about to repeat our first conversation word for word. Opa did it all the time. Not only did he fail to retain new information, when faced with the same situation or image he would respond to it exactly the same way. And I mean exactly. He’d repeat the same four lines of dialogue as if someone had just hit rewind on the scene, as if his reactions to specific stimuli were programmed. Scripted. Already mapped out.
I look around the store to see if she is accompanied by a caregiver. She isn’t. It must be the beginning, I think. She has one can of bread crumbs in her cart.
“He is the only one?” She asks, her gaze fixed on my son.
“Yes,” I say. “So far the only one.”
“He is a so bootiful you could make a thousand of him,” she says this time with a little less enthusiasm as if somewhere under that babooshka her mind knows she’s made the point before.
“Thank you,” I say.
I coax Henry into smiling for her. This causes some people in the bread aisle to smile too – or walk away thoroughly annoyed because my cart is taking up valuable space between the hamburger buns and English muffins.
I ask Henry to blow her a kiss. This takes even more coaxing. He does and though it’s sloppy to me, to her it’s the most darling thing she’ll never remember.
“Ciao ciao,” she says as we part ways for the second time.
I roll into the frozen foods. Memories of my grandfather in his vital days cloud my mental shopping list. I forget to buy broccoli. The dreamer in me hopes the old woman recalls Henry’s kiss. The realist in me says she won’t. The cynic in me hopes I’ll never run into her again so I’ll never have to know.
At the front of the store we cross paths again. Again she makes her way to my cart.
“Your son,” she says. “He is a bootiful.”
“Thank you,” I reply.
“He is the only one?”
“Yes.”
I wait for her to tell me that I could make a thousand of him, but she doesn’t. Instead she bids us ciao ciao, then blows Henry a kiss.
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Your story is “a bootiful.” Thanks for sharing!
January 29th, 2013 at 12:27 pmOne thousand smiling Henry’s running around all calling out “nana nana” all at once sounds beautiful to me!!!! Cute story Heidi.
January 29th, 2013 at 2:22 pmLove this story, Heidi. We lived next to a woman who was exactly 90 years older than Julian. Every day we saw her, from as soon as I started showing until we moved out of that house w/ a 3-year-old in tow, she told me how special it was to have children, especially boys, and that it would be selfish of me to just have one. Fern is somehow still hanging on, but she doesn’t even have enough mental capacity to repeat sweet the funny phrases and stories like she used to.
January 29th, 2013 at 2:25 pmWell said. I can’t imagine how lovely and saddening that must have been. Your son really is beautiful
January 30th, 2013 at 5:28 pm