“Come on pop-paw,” Rachel said, taking my hand. “I want to go see Grandma Gwen.”
I closed the Elmo book we had been reading and pitched it on the bookshelf. Rachel tugged me out of the little play area, down the hallway, through the funeral parlor past small groups of murmuring, closely huddled kin; to the side of the casket where her grandmother lay.
Rachel’s face took on a soft angelic glow. A slight Mona Lisa like smile creased her lips as her eyes began to peruse her still grandmother. Her hair. Her face. Her jewelry. The position of her hands … I watched and wondered what this little girl might be thinking.
I was nearly five years old when my great grandpa died. My memory of him is as vague as my granddaughters’ whisperings can sometimes be. I do remember being lifted to see him in the casket; not understanding why he lay so still. I recall the cemetery afterwards, the large heap of flowers on his grave. I kept looking for his head, thinking that it must be somewhere amid the flowers.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Under the flowers,” a voice replied.
Someone had said that he was going to heaven, a place that was higher than the clouds. I wondered how he would get there. Maybe a bucket tied to a rope would fall from the sky. Then he would come from under the flowers, climb into the bucket and be lifted away. I began to search the sky, looking for the bucket. When it was time to go, I was still waiting for the bucket to fall.
“I want to hug Grandma Gwen.” Rachel’s voice pulled me back to my place next to her.
I felt awkward. “Maybe tomorrow, when it is time to tell her good-bye you can give her a hug.”
She grasped my hand. I was expecting her to plead, “May I give her a hug?”
Instead, “Come on pop-paw, I want to go back to the toy room.”
While in my mind I am still waiting for the bucket to fall, I think this little girl has the best attitude of us all.
Grampy Lash 
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