The bright morning sun pokes its shining face over the horizon above Two Inlets Lake. Although it is just now light, I have been up for hours. The mental alarm clock in my eight year old brain wakes me up at six o’clock, just like every other morning. I quietly sneak out of bed and feel my way down the narrow hall to the staircase, careful not to wake up my sister or dad. I skillfully navigate the creaky stairs and reach the bottom with ease. Upon reaching the ground floor, I break into a mad sprint for the playroom, where I immediately dump an entire bucket of Legos onto our ping-pong table. I sort and search the pieces, looking for the right parts for today’s build. By the time the sun peeks through the picture windows on the front of my house, I have moved on from Legos, to Matchbox cars, to snowmobiles and dirt bikes, and eventually back to Legos.

My dad comes down the stairs and greets me with a good morning. The tired expression on his face tells me that his light sleeping was no match for my loud play, but that does not phase me. Tomorrow I will wake up at the same time and so will he. After he packs his lunch, it’s out the door for the two of us. I climb into the backseat of his truck, and we head for Grandma’s house.

As we pull into the gravel driveway, I look at the old white farmhouse. The faded flag in the front yard waves gracefully in the summer morning breeze. When I enter the house, I try to be quiet because I know that my grandma and grandpa are still asleep and I do not want to wake them. When I hear my dad’s truck begin to pull out of the driveway, I run to the front window and wait for him to pass by. When he reaches the road, I see him glance back to the house, and at me, watching through the window. He waves at me and I wave back, watching until his truck disappears past the rows of trees along the front yard. I sit down on the couch and wait for somebody else to wake up.

Before too long, my grandma comes from the bedroom and asks me if I’m ready for breakfast. I say yes and we head to the kitchen. She gets the oatmeal down and I fetch the small pot from under the sink. Just then, my uncle John comes down from upstairs.  Grandma and I fix up some oatmeal and she lets me sweeten it up to my liking. I add three heaping scoops of brown sugar and one scoop of white sugar to my small bowl of oats. I mix it up with my spoon until it turns into a shiny brown paste. I eat my breakfast quickly and go back to playing while Grandma does the dishes.

I return to the living room and roll up the large rug that sits on the oak floor. I find an assortment of stools, buckets, and other figures and lay them where the rug used to be. After I am done organizing my obstacles, I unroll the rug, covering the debris and marvel at the sight of the beautiful landscape I have just created. I collect all of the toy cars in the house and race and jump them all over the hills and ravines of my carpet racetrack. When Grandma finishes the dishes, she pours herself a mug of tea and sits in her rocking chair, watching me play. I look at her and she smiles. I return to playing with my cars. When I hear my grandpa yawn as he awakes, I quickly pull the items out from under the rug, before he catches me and jump up on the couch.

Grandpa walks right past us on the way to the kitchen. I sneak into the dining room and watch him work. My grandpa never says a whole lot, but it is still interesting to observe him. He takes a loaf of toasting bread from the bread drawer and drops two pieces into the toaster. When they pop up, he smothers some jam on them. I can smell the homemade highbush cranberry concoction from across the room. He reads the previous day’s newspaper while he eats. When his breakfast is gone, he places his dirty plate in the sink and simply walks outside. I run out the door after him and follow him into the garage. He hands me a plastic ice cream pail and takes one for himself, along with his foam kneeling pad. We walk to the garden.

He kneels down next to the potato plants and quickly picks away anything that does not belong, including weeds and thistles. I sit down next to the green beans and do the same. The beans form rows in the garden that reach from one end to the other. I pluck a green bean off of its stem and pop it into my mouth. I pick a couple weeds, but it is very boring and my attention span is shorter than that of a dog, and I get side tracked. After just about thirty seconds, I lose interest in this and just watch my grandpa work instead. His back is hunched from decades of hard work, and years of weeding this exact garden. His fingers are worn and cracked like an old, weather checked tire. As he moves from plant to plant, I watch his every move. He never works very fast, but he never stops. Eventually, when he finishes with the potatoes, he moves onto the corn. As soon as he disappears into narrow rows of green stalks, I sneak out of the garden and make my way to the house.

When I enter the house, I see John playing solitaire by himself and my grandma is still sitting in the living room, still sipping on her tea. I dig through the closet until I find the time-worn marbles board and coffee can full of mismatching marbles.

“Grandma, let’s play marbles.” I call into the living room.
“Okay, just give me a minute,” she responds.

I set up the board with red, yellow, and green marbles, for the three of us. So there we sit, for the better part of two hours, playing marbles and king’s corners. Marbles is basically just Sorry but with different game pieces. Any time my grandma has the opportunity to knock me off, you bet she does.

“Grandma, I thought we were friends.”
“This is a game. We don’t have any friends,” she says with a wink.

When we finish playing, I put the board back in its place in the closet and go into the kitchen. Grandma has fixed me up a huge bowl of ice cream just like I like. I top it with Nesquik, peanuts, and crumbled pieces of pretzel. The flavors that rush to my tongue, bring an immediate smile to my face. After my lunch of ice cream and milk, I set out to find Grandpa. I find him in the garage, working on his old John Deere tractor. I can hardly read the numbers “530” on the side of the hood. As he works, I can tell that things are not going well. My vocabulary increases by the minute, but I know that these are not words that I get to use. While he works, my dad pulls into the driveway. I smile at the sight of his truck, but I know that his return means I have to leave. I run to the house and search for my grandmother. She is sitting in her chair by the window, watching the hummingbirds drink from the feeder hanging on a hook. The tiger lilies beneath the feeder are in full bloom and show beautifully with their dark blacks and brilliant oranges. I give my grandma a hug and a kiss and turn to go.

“Goodbye,” she says to me as I begin to walk away.
“See you later,” I say in reply.

I never say goodbye. It’s always see you again.

She smiles at me and I walk out of the house. The old tractor roars to life in the garage and I hear its familiar putt-putt-putt. As we leave and drive past the old farm house, I watch the flag in the front yard, still fluttering in the wind. It flies gracefully, like an eagle soaring in the sky. As I leave the farm, I think back to all of the fun I had today, playing with Grandma and working with Grandpa. Although I do not know it yet, these are the days that I will remember forever. I am learning valuable lessons from my grandma and grandpa. Although I’m not much of a helper, the things I learned from observing my grandpa work still stick with me. Grandma teaches me that the time spent together is priceless. Perhaps the most important lesson I learned is there’s never a bad time for ice cream.