By Scott Shephard

By Scott Shephard

I grew up in a house in Sioux Falls that was next door to my grandma Ida’s house. My aunt Phyllis lived there, too. Because my mom worked, it was often my grandma and aunt who checked up on me, especially during the summer. I can’t remember ever challenging their authority, though I kind of felt like I had three moms at a time when I thought one mother was more than enough. I also felt a little cheated in that because we saw each other almost every day, Ida didn’t dote on me and smother me with love like the grandmas I saw on TV.

It’s an odd thing, but when I close my eyes, I can see other pictures of my grandma but I can’t hear her. I think that’s because she was more a listener than a talker. I remember going through the front door of her house into a living and dining room that were always very quiet and softly lighted. She would sit silently while I explored the countless nicknacks or played chopsticks on her piano. I also remember that Ida used a brand of furniture polish that I came to associate with her and her house. Years later, I bought a bottle of polish that circumstantially was the same kind she used. When I opened it, the smell took me back to Ida’s dark living room: I was a child again and she was sitting quietly in her chair and smiling at me. It brought tears to my eyes that day as the memory does now.

Between our two houses on Sherman Avenue there were chokecherry trees. On a dare, I ate a chokecherry once and I can’t say that I’ve ever tasted anything more bitter and mouth puckering. But I would watch Ida pick the berries and a day or two later I would be putting chokecherry jelly on my toast. It was delicious and I thought my grandma must be a magician to turn such an awful thing into something so good. How I miss my grandma’s chokecherry jelly.

My bedroom window was just across from my Grandma’s kitchen window. On summer nights, when I turned my room lights off and went to bed, I could sometimes hear the muted sounds of Ida’s radio or of conversations coming through our open windows. More likely, though, I would hear the sound of a ticking clock. Ida always kept a fairly large wind up clock in her kitchen window and it would be the last thing I would hear before going to sleep.

All these years later, I see myself as a puppy dog back then being pacified by the sound of a clock. My room, and certainly my soul, were suffused by the ineffable warmth of my grandma’s love. And the rhythm of the clock was the sound of my grandma’s beating heart.

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