2019-07-09 - Turning Unopened Pages (A memory of my Grandfather)
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     I pour steaming hot water from the tap into the bowl. I
     wash my face, fully, using a facial cleanser, taking time to
     luxuriate in the experience.
 
 When I was a child, as many children do, I occasionally visited
 my grandparents. My grandmother was the sterotypical gramma from
 dozens of cultures. Fussing in the kitchen, often religiously
 preparing food, never stopping in her movements. My grandfather,
 probably also fitting some stereotypes, was the complete opposite.
 I always see him sitting in his chair, in a part of the room where
 he could not see the television. I remember that device vividly.
 Black and white, when you turned it on it sat there for what seemed
 like hours, before a white dot appeared, a dot which, if you were
 lucky, resolved into a picture. Black and white. This was a novelty
 to me, I think it was even something of a novelty to my parents. My
 grandfather would barely look at the thing, sitting silently in his
 chair, back ramrod straight, not touching the cushion. Silently he
 sits, in my memories.
 
     I wash off the cleanser, and embark on the second stage.
     Working the lather, painting it onto my beard, passing back and
     forth, a mantra of its own experience.
 
 He must not always have sat in that chair, for I remember, dimly
 down through the years, days when we did other things. Like the
 day he made me a milk float (his words). I remember him taking
 the cream soda from some crevice in the kitchen, solemnly pouring
 some into a wide cut glass, then taking the ice-cream, laboriously
 scraping out a scoop, which he gingerly deposited in the soda. He
 pushed it to me, and he watched with delight as I enthusiastically
 ate and drank and giggled. He had never had this as a child, he
 told me, this was something he had discovered as an adult, after he
 met my gramma. He shone that day, my grandfather, in ways I never
 saw before.
 
     When the lather is good and ready, tickling the hairs now
     descending from my nose, I bring out the razor. A Merkur,
     bought for me by my children this past December, an improvement
     on that cheap plastic device I’d been using. I check the
     edge, like a shochet his hallaf as the slightest
     imperfection can ruin the skin.
 
 I remember talking with him, in days long past, asking him
 questions, being rebuffed by the pains of his memories. He lived
 a life, my grandfather, a life marked by fear, by conflict, by
 terror which came in the night and took loved ones from family and
 home and safety. A life which began anew, time after time, yet was
 always pursued by the same concerns. He would not, could not speak
 of those to a child, for fear that I would never again find the
 blessing of sleep. As I grew older, he did speak, and I listened,
 and I learned.
 
     Slowly I pass the blade across my face. Down twice, up once,
     no more, no less. The aim is to reduce, the aim is to convince
     the hair to leave with the blade, to allow the weight of the
     razor to do the necessary, to take away what is not needed
     without effort, chastening the skin.
 
 He told me of men he had served with, men he had hidden with, men
 who had died. Other men who had died by his design, or by his gun,
 or by his hand. He told me of the days spent in flight, of the days
 spent in waiting, of the days spent in fear of reprisals or of
 attack. And he told me of the fleeting moments of real terror, the
 breathlessness of adrenaline, the reckless anticipation of death.
 He would speak, haltingly at first, but later with passion, and
 not the passion of glory, but the passion of pain and loss. The
 unending knowledge of lives taken, the ceaseless turmoil it creates
 and the bitter emptiness of the nights which follow.
 
     This is something I had to learn. Raised on a diet of two
     blade, three blades, more, lubricating strips and gewgaws of
     advertising spiel, like most men my age, hinged supports which
     contour to the face and strike as a furious cohort on the
     battleground of that face. I had stopped shaving entirely, as
     my weak and sensitive skin rebelled against such traducements.
 
 Those years where I sat and listened were short. Guided by those
 same impulses of youth, I fled from his truths. This sad and angry
 old man who sat in his chair. I abandoned his wisdom and his
 pain, I made excuses when we visited, I never made time for his
 company. I walked away from him, walked away to the siren songs
 of my companions and their own visions of great deeds yet to do.
 The earnest simplicity of the lies we all believed in, the lie of
 comfort and the lie of glory, the lies that all nations breed in
 their young.
 
     There is an art to the double-edged safety razor, one born of
     the lived knowledge of nicks and cuts and angry redness. I came
     back to this art slowly, first using a disposable single blade
     razor, informed by some media piece about avoiding irritation.
     I learned the shape of my face, the pattern of my hair, the
     places where it runs unseen in patterns unknown. This was a new
     experience, knowing my own face. I bring the thing to an end,
     checking those spots I have learned demand particular
     attention.
 
 I came back to him, just before the end. I sat with him in his
 hospital room. We talked of milk floats and we talked of the things
 we had spent the last years not talking of. He was cold by the
 window, I argued with a nurse so that he was moved. He lay there
 in the bed, quiet now, happier in the warmer room. He said he was
 tired, and he thanked me for coming, thanked me for listening. I
 told him I would return in the morning, and he kissed me goodbye.
 
 I did return the next morning. To a white room with a white bundle
 on a white bed. No more wisdom. No more pain. No more nightmares.
 
 No more.
 
     I pass the alum over any snags, I rub my face clean and, like
     some dandy of old, I apply some moisturising balm.
 
 I sat that day in the darkened house, the quiet murmuring sounds
 of my family and their visitors below. I sat in his bathroom, and
 in my hands I held his razor and his alum stone. His razor was a
 beautiful thing, more beautiful than any I’ve seen despite its
 simple nature: steel, gunmetal gray and aged, the top opened like
 a butterfly’s wings on a flower. I cried, and I wept, and I held
 those tokens of a life lived, a life I had spurned for so many
 wasted days.
 
     I stop. I look at myself in the mirror, a reflection of my
     grandfather. I have his eyes, I am told, blue chased with
     steel. I remember him now, every time I do this. This simple
     act of remembrance, a prayer in form unlike any other, a
     memory, a hope. A practice, an effort to turn those unopened
     pages. I honour him in a way he would have approved, silently,
     stoic. A memory that serves its own importance.
 
 > May peace come to bless our lives. Let us work to create peace
 > here on earth for all people. And let us say, Shalom.