13 years ago, on my 16^th birthday, my grandpa handed me a beautifully wrapped package.  It was the size of a cake box and weighed a little less than a six-pack of bottled soda. My grandpa was never one to give elaborate presents but the intricate wrapping job and shiny bow gave me hope that this might be something substantial. I eagerly opened my gift. Inside I found wads of crumpled newspapers cushioning 6 empty soda bottles that had been placed in the box to add weight…and, at the bottom of the box, the thing that every 16 year old wants to see on his birthday, a key chain. Typically key chains are good because typically key chains have keys on them, keys are what start cars… and cars, beyond being the quintessential gift that one hopes to receive the year they become legally eligible to drive… are very difficult to fit into a cake box. This particular key chain was made by the matchbox toy company, and was in the shape of a red matchbox sports car but unfortunately, the silver key-ring was depressingly empty.  Taped to the top of the matchbox car was a note that read, “Happy birthday. This is the only car you are going to get from us.”  The note was signed by my entire family… including my 5 year-old little sister… because you’re never too young to learn how to break someone’s spirit.

My grandpa loved practical jokes and I might have found this one slightly more hilarious had the key chain not been the only quote-unquote gift I received from my family that day. But I couldn’t be too disappointed, we were so poor that I had no real expectation of getting a car… and the ear to ear grin on my grandpa’s face as he reveled in the success of his prank made it almost worth it… almost. That is who my grandpa was, he was never one to sugar coat, he was never one to soften the blow, he preferred to throw the hard news in your face and win you back with a smile and a laugh. And I loved him for that.

A month ago, on my 29^th birthday, I received a call from my grandma. “Hi honey, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday… hold on, let me put your grandpa on the phone”  “HELLO? WHO IS THIS?”… I could hear my grandma coaching him in the background. “It’s Aham, tell him happy birthday.” “WHO? ADAM? WHO’S ADAM?” “No, Bob, It’s AH-HAAM! Your grandson” “MY GRANDSON? WHO?” “Dammit Bob, just say happy birthday!” “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”…click.

My grandpa was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about 5 years ago and his mental decline has been rapid and severe. Gone are the practical jokes, gone are the witty comebacks, gone are the smile and the laugh.

When I was a child, my grandpa was everything I dreamed I would one day become. Although he never went to college, he began his career as a machinist at Boeing and eventually worked his way up to the design and engineering departments before he was snatched up by NASA to work on the Space Shuttle. In the 1970’s my grandpa, still with no formal education, decided he was going to become an architect. While most people would have at least pondered the question, “How does one go about becoming an architect?” my grandpa simply bought a drafting table, graph paper and pencils and began to successfully draw blueprints for sprawling commercial business parks that would later be built in the suburbs of Wichita, Kansas. When my grandpa decided he wanted to be a fine art painter, he followed his typical strategy and, without taking a single course in painting or art history, bought large canvases that he filled with beautifully expansive landscapes. There was nothing he couldn’t do.

For the first decade of my life, my adoration of my grandpa was not reciprocated. He had never approved of the marriage between his daughter and my father and since I was a product of that ill-fated relationship, I inherited a bulk of the disappointment. I remember, for years after my father left, my grandpa would say to my mom, “You better find him a new dad quick or you’re going to end up with a dammed-queer.” I didn’t know what a dammed-queer was when I was 7 but I knew I wanted to prove myself to my grandpa, I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to teach me how to be the man HE was. I copied everything he did, when he was in his woodshed, carving beautiful sculptures out of discarded logs… I would watch him from a distance, trying to carve a twig with a steak knife. While he was in his backyard, practicing his fly-fishing technique, gripping his fishing rod, flicking his wrist just as his meticulously hand-tied fly kissed the dirt, I would be watching from the front yard while I not so gracefully copied his movements using a piece of yarn tied to a twig… there were a lot of twigs involved… it was important to be discreet when doing this, my grandpa did not view imitation as flattery, on the occasions when he caught me, he would simply yell, “STOP BEING A JACK-ASS!” He was a man that charted his own course by hand in permanent ink. For him, to copy someone was to be weak, to copy someone was to be scared.

Everything changed when I was around 9 years old. I had snuck into his office, ignoring the laminated sign taped to the door that said “NO KIDS ALLOWED,” shuffled through his drawers and grabbed tubes of acrylic paint, brushes and small canvas. I climbed onto the stool in front of his drafting table, set my canvas down, turned on the overhead light and began painting. My subject was a small pair of cowboy boots I found sitting on the bookshelf across the room. These boots had been worn by my grandparents’ first child, Bobby-Joe, before he died of leukemia at age 3. Each time I touched my brush to the canvas I tried to visualize what my grandpa looked like when he painted, how his hand moved, how every few minutes he would move his head back to survey his work.

I had finished about one half of one boot when my grandpa burst through the door. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN HERE? WHY THE HELL DO YOU HAVE BOBBY-JOE’S BOOTS…WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH MY PAINT AND CANVAS?” He was just about to grab me by the arm and drag me out of the room when he looked down and saw my unfinished work. He paused… and after a moment…  he muttered… “That’s not bad… that’s not bad at all,” his anger dissipated suddenly. He now looked driven. “Look, I can’t have you getting paint on my drafting table so I need you to get down from there… put the caps on the paint but don’t put them away, I will be right back.”

Through the window I watched my grandpa speed off in his beat-up black ford f-150. He returned about an hour later carrying several bags. He escorted me back upstairs to his office and sat me down in a chair while he emptied out what seemed like hundreds of tubes of paint, a palette, brushes and a small easel. I was in shock… as I said, my grandpa was never one for gifts, especially when it wasn’t a holiday. I expected him to set me down in front of new toys and then go back to ignoring me… but he didn’t. He pulled up a chair next to me, placed my unfinished painting on the easel and said “OK, let’s see what you got.”

He watched every stroke of my brush. He was silent with the exception of an occasional “hmmm?” and “huh?” After a couple hours, the painting was almost complete, I just had to finish shading the area between where one boot ended and the next began. While I was adding the finishing touches, my grandpa went downstairs to make himself a sandwich. I found shading the space between the boots difficult so to make the distinction more clear, I painted a thin line to separate one boot from the next. When my grandpa came back upstairs and saw the updated painting, he was furious. He looked at the painting with disgust… and then he looked at me in disgust and then he instructed me to look at the boots on the shelf. “Look at those boots!” I looked at them. “Look at your painting.” I looked at the painting. “Now look at the boots again.” I looked at the boots again. ”DO YOU SEE A GOD DAMMED LINE BETWEEN THOSE BOOTS?” I said, “No.” “THEN WHY IS THAT LINE ON YOUR PAINTING? Do you see a god-dammed line???” This may be the most important thing anyone has said to me. It’s such a simple idea, but it means much, it means that if you are going to create something real, there are no shortcuts, if you have a vision, whether it be real or imaginary, you assess that vision and present it as it IS… not almost as it is… not kind of as it is… if there is no line… then you better not paint a god-dammed line. From the moment he uttered those words to me, we had an understanding… and we were inseparable. He took me to art museums, he took me to concerts, he even took me fly-fishing. We would drive around for hours in his beat up black ford F150, I could talk to him about anything and everything. He was my grandpa, he was my best friend and he was the closest thing I would ever have to a father.

It was about 2 years ago that my grandpa forgot who I was for the first time. I had just finished the debut performance of a pop-opera I composed and I called him the next day to tell him how it had gone. “Hey grandpa, its Aham” “Who?” “Aham… your grandson…” “Ah-haam?? I’m sorry, hold on, let me put my wife, Kay, on the phone.”

Alzheimer’s is the most subtle form of death. I suddenly found myself mourning the loss of a man who was, at that moment, still speaking to me on the other end of the telephone.

A few nights later I had a dream. I was sitting in the passenger seat of that beat up black Ford F150. I looked to my left and saw my grandfather. He was more clear-eyed than I had seen him in years, he looked present and sharp. We were parked by the bank of the river where we used to go fishing. We sat for a few moments before he spoke. My grandpa looked at me and said, “Aham, this is the last time we will be able to have a conversation.” I nodded in acknowledgement. “What would you like to talk about?” he asked… “So many things,” I replied… “Well, you’re going to wake up soon, so let’s talk.”

I talked to him about my marriage that was falling apart, I talked to him about my plans for the future… I told him that I was scared. We talked for what seemed like hours, he gave me advice, he reassured me, he understood me like no one else could… and then the moment after we said our goodbyes, he told me that he loved me one last time and I was transported back to my lonesome bedroom.

There is pretty much a consensus amongst the humans of earth that dreams are, by definition, not real… but I refuse to accept that. That was the best conversation I have ever had and I WILL not believe that it did not happen. He was more real… he was more HIM in that dream than he is today in our so-called reality and I am eternally grateful that we got to talk… really talk… for that one last time. I was there, I sat next to him in that truck… and that time, I saw the line… I saw the fucking line.