The Puppet
The olive-green color jumps out every time, just before I hit Navarro Place, the street where my grandparents live in Denver, Colorado. It’s hard to miss: weathered shingles, the aged tree and crumbling steps lead to a splintered door. I ring the doorbell and knock loud three times. Immediately, I hear an interrogating, “Who’s there?” from the other side. The suspicious voice on the other end is my grandpa, Dale. I announce, “It’s your favorite granddaughter, Laura!” Each visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s house requires this specific ritual everyone in the family just knows. He opens the door quickly; I run in and slip into his open arms. I never know how many baseball caps I will see on top of his head. One summer years ago, he put on a second cap, not noticing he was wearing one already. The jeans he wears are soft and blue as the sky faded and washed a million times through the years. A beaten leather belt, with notches he punched in the leather himself, keep his pants high. He hugs me tightly, and my glasses begin to crook out of shape and fog up a little. I twitch slightly when his scruffy beard scratches against my cheek. Despite my numerous visits before, within moments of entering I still tell myself, “It’s different here.”
I remove my shoes. The thick shag carpet is a surprise between my toes. I enter the formal dining room, running my fingers atop the hi-fi stereo, making a trail through the dust. Spanning the length of the wall the stereo sits: silent, motionless, empty, blank. But it has a presence I cannot ignore. The rich mahogany wood has entrancing knots and rings, and stands almost as high as my hips. I linger on a thought of the past life the stereo had. I imagine the room filled with the music of Bing Crosby and the bobbity scat of Dizzy Gillespie. Proudly atop the stereo sits my grandpa’s dog tags he wore stationed in Guam. I move into the formal living. The monochromatic palette is hard to digest: forest, olive, kelly, lime, pale green. Everywhere. A low velvet couch matching the green exterior of the home serves as the main seating. Other chairs in a surprising toasted-marshmallow color sit next to the stereo. Opposite the couch stands the lamp that seems to take up as much room as another guest in the home. Too big and always in the way, it somehow is knocked over every time I visit.
The reason for visiting today is a first. Stairs are getting harder and harder to climb for my grandma Marilyn, and getting out of bed is nearly impossible. Sometimes she must use her wheelchair to get around the house. I hate seeing her in that thing. I rejoice for every new sunrise, but my grandma holds on to each sunset, not wanting it to be in the dark. She has started cleaning out her home and giving things away. Today, I am here to look through her puppets.
My grandma spent years in the Denver school system traveling from student to student with her puppets in tow. As a speech therapist, she encouraged students to use the puppets to help them speak better. Numbering over two-hundred puppets, they are laid before me in the living room like a museum exhibit, each puppet a distinct and unique artifact. Oranges, teals, purples and blues of the puppets stand apart from the green décor. With so much to look at, my eyes quickly move from color to color, not knowing which to focus on. After scanning the exhibition, my eyes return to one distinct puppet, my favorite, Raggedy Anne.
She has freckles on her face and red hair. Her dress is made of fabric my Grandmother made my annual Easter dress out of when I was ten years-old. As I continue looking at the Raggedy Anne doll it is like looking in a mirror. I can’t help but see a little bit of me in that doll. I noticed a smudge of dirt on her chin and remembered turning over rocks and searching for slugs in the front yard of our house on Newhall Drive as a kid. I would cradle the slugs in my tiny hands and race into the kitchen to show my mom. She never appreciated it. Huggable and soft, Raggedy Anne gave me an instant sensation of comfort when I picked her up. The hair was so sweet in two braided pigtails tied off in frayed baby blue grosgrain ribbon, matching the dress. Her hair, made of wool yarn, reminded me of when Grandma taught me to knit.
I am a well-seasoned knitter. At the age of fourteen, I sat outside on the deck of my grandparent’s summer home overlooking the pristine Lake Granby in Granby, Colorado. Watching my grandma’s twisted hands work the needles reminded me of an old tree with deteriorating roots, scattered and scathed. Occasionally, she set down her knitting and reached for her 64 ounce Big Gulp of Diet Pepsi to take a sip. When I felt confident to try knitting, I hesitantly clutched the needles trying not to drop them between the large gaps in the deck below. Stitch by stitch I created an entangled web of memories forever sewn to my core. Never will I forget those gentle hands that taught me to knit. When school began the next fall, I started a club called, “Admitting to Knitting.” Few members came at first. But soon, every week I was teaching someone else what my grandma taught to me, the joy of knitting. When I explain the difference between a knit and purl stitch to a novice I feel a little bit of my grandma in me.
Seeing a simple baseball cap makes my lips curl as I think about a tight, scruffy hug from Grandpa. When I wear a baseball cap, I always look in the mirror twice to make sure I am only wearing one. In the winter, I walk in the blowing snow with my grandmother’s love wrapped around my neck. The scarves she taught me to knit are the warmest I know. Ever since learning to knit, my summer is not complete until I spend a lazy afternoon knitting in Granby, Colorado, sipping on an ice cold 64 ounce Big Gulp of Diet Pepsi.
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