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Grandfather Chapter 1
Hey guys, my name is Kire(pronounced:Car-Rei), I'm new here and this is my first story. I just thought out this. I Hope you like it. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Preface: Michael's granddaughter, Paris' Daughter, retells a short story of them climbing a tree together. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ~Chapter 1: Climbing Trees~ One time my grandfather brought me outside and showed me a tall oak tree that grew up to the sky, he said, that when he climbed it he felt like he was removed from the whole world. He touched the trunk, old and scarred and worn, and he closed his eyes. The smile on his face I would always remember. I asked him why he didn't climb trees anymore, and instantly regretted it, because the smile fell off of his face. "I can't, darling. You can climb, I know that--you've inherited the old tree-climbing genes. You can climb for me. Climb this tree, darling, for me, will you?" And I clambered out of his arms, proud to be able to do something for my granddaddy. I reached up and pulled myself up by the branches, higher and higher and higher until he was only a speck on the ground. "Granddaddy," I called down, "can you see me? Can you still see me?" "Of course I can still see you," he yelled back up, "I can always see you!" "Come on up, Granddaddy! Come on!" He hesitated for a moment, then said something to himself that I couldn't hear from so high up. Then he reached up, and with that youthful grace that so characterized him, he pulled himself upward, one branch at a time, slower than I had, but still quick and limber. He finally made it up to the branch I was on and pulled me into his arms, slightly out of breath as he buried kisses into my hair, as he always liked to do. "You know me, darling. You always know I can still do it. You keep doing that, okay baby, keep telling me I can still do it, when I give up, okay?" I agreed, grinning, and he held me tighter as he turned to look out to the sprawling ranch below us. We could see so far, as if we were birds flying over the world, nonchalantly gazing down as eagles down to the petty lives of humans. His eyes were faraway but with a sparkle of alertness, laughter quivering at the edge of his mouth, as it always was. "Do you see, darling? See the wonderful world? Don't ever forget about it. If you ever do, climb up into this tree, and look at this, and know you're above it all and at the same time connected to it. Maybe if there's one thing I've learned I've learned that." "Is this your favorite tree, Granddaddy?" I touched the rough bark, wonderingly. He followed my gaze and reached out long, slender fingers to stroke where my own had just left. "Yes, this is my favorite. You know why?" He peeled off a layer of the bark, showing the tender and vulnerable green inner skin. "This tree has been through so much. You know they tried to cut it down? They tried to cut down a lot of trees, and they did, but this one they didn't. This tree stood strong because it believed in itself, and it didn't feel it had to lose its soft interior to stay strong. Do you understand?" I felt that granddaddy was saying something meaningful, but I didn't understand, so I shook my head, and he laughed, stroking my hair. "It's okay. I'm just rambling anyway." "But what about all the trees that were just cut down?" I wondered. He pulled me closer. "They're still alive. You know? They never let anyone cut them down. So even though they are gone, and you can't see them anymore, they're all the more powerful. This tree will die sometime too, and then it will become a spirit on the wind, like those old Native American stories we read sometimes. Did Mommy tell you the story about Revelation, from the Bible?" I nodded. Mommy had always told me learning about all faiths was important, then once I knew everything I had to pick my own. I said I wanted granddaddy's faith, and she laughed, saying, "Sometimes I think your granddaddy went past the faith, he just saw nature and love and saw straight into God's eyes." Yet Mommy and granddaddy had always loved the stories of the Bible; they said they were like stories of real people. "Well, that's the happily ever after, you know? But I think that the happily ever after is here, now. I wrote a poem about it when I was younger, I'll have to show it to you someday. Look, there." He pointed to a dandelion spore, floating on its grey fairy wings high above us. "See that? There's the tree's spirit, floating free, flying. So you know, those trees that died are okay. They're flying now." "That's good." I snuggled closer to him. "I want to stay here all day. And then sleep here. I love being here." He let out a soft laugh. "I don't think that'd be okay with your mommy. But you know, cherish the moment--it's more powerful than a thousand years." "Yeah, granddaddy." Even though I didn't understand what he was saying, I got the essence, merely sitting here in warm arms, letting the cool breeze brush my face. "Can you sing me to sleep when we go back down?" "Of course, darling, you know I always do." He whispers close to my ear, singing in a low voice "You are the sun, you make me shine; or more like the stars that twinkle at night. You are the moon that glows in my heart; you're my daytime, my nighttime, my world; you are my life. You like that one?" "Didn't you write that one for Mommy and Uncle Prince?" "Yes, but I also wrote it for all children, all the ones I didn't know, and all the ones who didn't exist yet... like you." He smiled, a wide innocent smile that he had never lost. "I love children, so much." "I know, I know." I groaned; I'd heard that so much from him that it had become redundant, yet every time he said it with such emotion I knew he meant it each time. "Come on, let's go back down and play a water balloon fight before I have to go to bed!" "Oh, gee, it's getting late, isn't it?" He gazed up at the darkening sky. "Alright, one last game." We climbed down together, a little awkwardly because he held my hand the whole time. Not like he was scared that I was going to fall, not like he was holding onto me for support, but just a loving union between us, granddaughter and grandfather. Finally, I dropped down from the last branch, and he slid down the trunk, his hat falling off as he landed on the springy grass. I stole it and put it on my head, strutting a moonwalk, and he watched admiringly. "Sometimes I think you're going to do that better than I do, and then where will I be, hmm?" I swept off the hat in a deep bow, then I ran to him, setting it crookedly on his curly hair. "I'll never be better than you, granddaddy!" He hugged me, a strong, tight hug, then pulled my face up and looked in my eyes. "I love you so much, darling." He kissed me lightly on the top of my head, then my nose, then finally a quick kiss on my lips. "I am so glad I have been given the gift of knowing you. Of knowing your mother, and Prince... of being given this life. I remember I used to think getting old was horrible. But you know, now I don't really think it's so bad. Sure, I can't go do shows, like I used to. But is that really important? I've been given a gift of the life I've had. And every day it seems like the world different, new, magical. More beautiful." "You're going to live forever, granddaddy!" I didn't like him talking about him being old. Sometimes we played Peter Pan, and I'm Wendy, or Tinkerbell, or one of the Lost Boys, but he was always Peter Pan. He loved to pretend to be a little boy who never grew old, who lived in a small island completely secluded from the rest of the world, who saw life with complete innocence. And it was in those moments, when he felt young, that he smiled most. His face relaxed into it's normal easy grin, and he chuckled. "Yes, darling, I'm going to live forever. You know that. I just need you to keep telling me these things, you know?" I sat on his lap, stealing his hat again and playing with it. "It really doesn't matter, really. Whether I left the world forty years ago, or tomorrow, or never." He looks up to the sky, beyond the last branches of the tall oak we climbed. "You've got it right. Children have it right. I'm going to live forever. "And you know how I know that?" His gaze returns to me. "Because of you. Because of your mother, because of Prince, because of Blanket, and because of all the children of the world. They look at me with those eyes and I know I will live forever, because they believe in me. "That's why I love you so much. And I've always told you the story of your name, what I told your mother you had to be called. Because you represent to me what children represent to me, what all children give to me, anyone who loves with pure innocence. "Hope." ---------------------------------------------------------------- I need more then 9 votes, and then we'll see if I get the second part out.
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