by David Cuzzolina

As soon as my Mom said what she said, the fear in my eyes made her regret it. She knew my affection for Mr. Dennis, and seeing how much her words upset me, tried to erase them from my mind.

“But I’m sure Mr. Dennis will be just fine, Daniel,” she told me, cupping my cheek in her hand. “He’s in pretty good shape for his age.”

I remember not buying it. Being a sensitive and precocious ten-year-old, I was easily troubled but not easily fooled. In bed some hours later, hands behind my head, eyes aimed at the ceiling, thinking in the dark, the answer for Mr. Dennis seemed simple enough. In the morning, determined to protect him from the worst, I set out for the small, red-brick house across the quiet street and pressed the doorbell. Footfalls in response grew louder. The door swung open throwing sunlight onto a long and puckered and gray and cheerless face. Seeing me, his eyes brightened and his somber expression rose into a welcoming smile.

“Well, it’s my buddy Daniel,” he said softly. Withdrawing to one side, he welcomed me as if I were royalty, with a bow and the flourish of an arm. “Enter, Sir Daniel. Always nice to see you.” He rested a hand on my shoulder. “C’mon out to the kitchen. I was about to fix breakfast.”

***

Most summer visits with Mr. Dennis happened outside while he worked in his garden, which was almost all the time in good weather. We’d chat idly. He taught me a lot about flowers, the many different kinds, the care each one needed, and spoke passionately of their beauty. More than a few times he would survey his work and say, “Can you imagine a world without flowers, Daniel?” Then he’d give a dismal shake of his head. “What a dull world this would be.”

“Have a seat, Daniel.” He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and eased into one across from me. His hands, folded now on the tabletop, spoke to Mr. Dennis’ advanced years, creased and weather-worn. A band of gold circled a finger on his left hand. “So what brings my friend to this humble abode so early in the morning?”

“Well…” All my rehearsal in bed the night before turned to sawdust in my mouth. Face to face with Mr. Dennis, an unexpected rush of nervousness sabotaged my resolve to broach the dreaded subject. A kind of stage fright.

My face exposed my struggle. “Is something wrong, Daniel, you look worried?”

“Well…” This is very important so just say it, I told myself, and out it came. “My mom says someone your age shouldn’t be working out in the hot sun like you do because, um, something bad might happen. And, well, I thought maybe I could just do the work for you.”

His ear-to-ear grin was unexpected for such a serious subject. “Oh, she said that, did she? And what’s the bad that might happen?” The word tongue-tied me; he came to the rescue. “Never mind, I know what it is. And you do, too, don’t you?” I managed a nod. “Well, thank you for your concern, and thank your mom, too, but I’m not worried.”

That he already knew the danger, didn’t need my warning, made his dismissive attitude all the more bewildering. “So you won’t let me do the work for you?”

His blue eyes sparkled with gratitude. “Daniel, you don’t know how much your offer means to me — a great, great deal, really — but I enjoy my gardening. It isn’t really work.”

Given what was at stake, his refusal seemed unreasonable, unacceptable, and more of my mother’s words poured out. “Are flowers really so important?”

His eyes widened as if the question surprised him. “Well, they are to me.”

My head tilted with curiosity. “But why?”

“Well…” He scratched his head. “I never really thought about it but I guess because they make me happy, Daniel. You plant the seeds and nurture them and watch them grow into something beautiful.” He paused. “I guess they’re like my children, in a way.”

“You don’t have real children?”

“No, Daniel, I was never so lucky.” A thin smile quickly disappeared. His brow furrowed when he reached across the table and with an index finger under my chin raised my bowed head until my eyes met his. “You’re really worried about me, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m touched, Daniel, really, but you shouldn’t worry over me. Well, what I mean is — and this might be hard for a young guy like you to understand just now — truth be told, Daniel, I’m okay at this point in my life with whatever happens.”

He was right. I didn’t understand. He talked as if dying was okay, and I didn’t understand at all. It wasn’t okay when my grandfather died. I cried. A lot of people did, especially my mom. He was the only grandfather I knew. My dad’s dad died before I was born. Mr. Dennis became kind of a third grandfather to me. I didn’t want to lose him, too, and my question was one of worried surprise. “Really, Mr. Dennis?”

“Nobody lives forever, Daniel,” he said with a shrug of indifference. “And you know what? To live a long life and leave this earth still doing something you really love, like tending to a flower garden? A man can’t ask for much more than that. I don’t think life is worth living if you can’t do the things you love anymore. You understand, Daniel?”

“Uh, I guess.”

My puzzled expression betrayed me and he left his chair and came to mine and hunkered down beside me, laying hands on my shoulders and looking straight into my eyes. “Well, some day you will, buddy, some day a very long time from now you will understand.” He gave my shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “And you’ll remember Mr. Dennis saying so.”

***

He stood and went to the stove where steam rose from a metal pan. “I’m making a hard boiled egg for myself, would you like one?” I said I would. He took two eggs from the refrigerator and dropped them in the steaming pan. “It’ll be a few minutes,” he said.

My mom used a term I’d never heard before. Too upset last night to ask her what it meant, it sounded okay, so I asked him. “Mr. Dennis, what actually are golden years?”

With the eggs rattling noisily in the pan, he replied while pulling plates from a cupboard and plucking silverware from a drawer and arranging them on the table. “Well, Daniel, that’s what they say about old people like me, that they’re in their so-called golden years. But truth be told I’m just an eighty-three-year-old man, Daniel. No golden years. That’s just something someone made up to sugarcoat old age, but not a lot about it is very sweet. I would give anything to be your age again. In fact, I happen to think you’re the one in his golden years.”

The place settings complete, he dropped some bread in a toaster and sat again. “Now, I’m sure there are better things to talk about,” he said, and changed the subject. He told me more about his experiences in the war and about being a fireman. I said I might want to be a fireman too and he said I’d make a good one and talked about fire trucks and fire dogs and how a fire siren makes its noise. He said it was about time for another trip to the fishing pond and we made a date for the following week.

We cracked and peeled our eggs and ate them with buttered toast; Mr. Dennis had coffee and poured me some milk. Leaving, I thanked him for breakfast and he gave me a big hug and thanked me for visiting.

I left still very worried for him, bewildered by his attitude and feeling helpless. What more could I do?

***

We made our fishing trip. It would be our last. Later that summer a blaring siren and flashing red lights interrupted my lunch and brought my mom and me onto our front porch to witness a dreadful scene. Two people in white lifted Mr. Dennis’ limp body from the middle of his flowers onto a bed with wheels and covered him head to toe in a white sheet. My mom told me what it meant. My stomach turned and tears clouded my vision.

I remember feeling like something inside me had been ripped out and nothing could fill the vacant space ever again. Mom hugged me tight for a long time. Telling her of my conversation with Mr. Dennis, she said I should find comfort in knowing he died the way he wanted, doing something he loved.

As the days and weeks passed, I did, but still missed him terribly. I watched with a broken heart as the flowers in his garden — a beautiful palette of radiant colors — wanting for their caretaker, wilted and died from neglect.

***

It was so long ago yet seems like yesterday. My life has passed in the blink of an eye. I tend my own garden now, as indifferent as Mr. Dennis to the likely consequences, remembering his words as he said I would, understanding what he meant about clinging to life’s joys no matter what — a lesson he taught a ten-year-old a lifetime ago in the neighborhood where I spent my golden years.

Photo by Irina Iriser via pexels