The last time I was at my grandfather's house was in the middle of August.
It's a peculiar house: he built it himself, and it shows. It sits in a neighborhood just north of 8 mile, at one time surrounded by fields, now abutted by a parking lots and auto plants.
The backyard was always an exciting place when I was growing up. Full of storybook possibilities. Frightening like a fairytale. It was an isolated patch of green in a swath of industry. When I was very small, there was a pool: the first in ground pool in Warren when installed, by the early 80's somewhat decrepit. Unusable. Dangerous.
The backyard had several distinct areas that felt like separate worlds. There was the vine-twined swing set in one back corner, a metal, imposing shed further along the property line. The black walnut standing alone in the lawn because no other large plants would grow near. On the other side of the pool, the apple tree, the pear tree. And all along one edge, was the garden.
I used to walk the rows of plants when we visited, picking green beans, tomatoes. Seeing the vines go from flower to fruit. In the back of the garden was a compost pile, and a dark overgrown shed, where I would never venture. Too dark, too jungled.
In 1984, the new pool was installed, my and my brother's initials written in the concrete. It gave the yard a bright center to complement the garden, now two living spaces surrounded by a periphery of mystery. An 8 year old could float in that pool and look up as planes flew overhead to or from Detroit Metro, look into that sky crosshatched by power lines and dream of all the places in the world capped by blue, bounded by green.
Even as I got older and the yard went through changes, the pool once again falling into dis-use nearly a decade ago, it was still a place that seemed full of stories. Though giving up the pool, my grandpa kept the garden going.
A few years ago, the pool was filled in, becoming a large plane of dirt where grass stubbornly refused to grow. And still there were new crops of green beans.
Just over three years ago, as fall arrived, my grandmother died in the house. But the next summer, there were tomatoes, my grandpa puttering through.
And every time I visited as a young adult, I would be sent home with a bag full of produce. I would drive the tomatoes with me five hours down I-75, and they would taste like summer and Detroit and the Tigers and fireworks and swimming in the pool and sitting wrapped in towels playing on an Atari 2600 in the breezeway while my grandpa filmed us, shirt off, shorts hiked up, with his enormous "portable" video camera. And his tractor resting in the corner of the yard, and the moped he was tinkering with lying on its side behind the garage and the tomato plants high in the sunlight and us getting ready for watermelon in just a few minutes, as soon as we finished this game.
The last time I was in my grandfather's house, I walked through the backyard. The pool's shadow finally filled in by some hopeful vegetation, the rusting debris safely cleared from the corners. And the garden gone. Not a trace. Not a line in the struggling turf.
I had never realized how this piece of fenced land could feel so small. So empty.
Now two months later, the house is truly empty, and it's doubtful that my grandpa will go back. I don't expect to hear his voice again.
But 300 miles to the south, I have a pear from his tree on my kitchen counter, waiting. In the morning I will eat it and remember.
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