I tiptoed into my grandfather’s study. He was listening to a song. A song I had never heard before. He switched off the recorder when he noticed me.
“Why are you crying, Grandfather?”
He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face, then invited me onto his lap.
“You see, Annie, sometimes we lose the most valuable thing in our life through heedlessness.”
“What’s that, Grandpa...headlessness?”
He smiled.
“It’s heedlessness, not headlessness, my little one, but it may have an element of both.”
“Could you, very sweetly, explain a little bit more, Grandpa?”
The “very sweetly,” of course, came from Winnie-the-Pooh, and had become a formula between the two of us.
“I’ll try…. If you look out of this window in the evening, and there is a gorgeous sunset, but you only see the garbage can on the road, you don’t pay attention to the beauty, you are heedless of it. Or, if your mom looks very tired and is hardly able to answer your questions because of all the hard work she has done during the day, and the constant fighting you do with your little brother…”
I tried to interrupt, but he continued with a mischievous wink:
“…I know it’s his fault only. In any case- the thing you should do is offer her help in the kitchen, put your place in order, be quiet and not worry her even more. If you don’t notice these signs in her and don’t behave accordingly, you are heedless, and in a way headless, because you neither feel nor think. You see?”
“Well, yes, I guess I should pay better attention to how other people feel. But why have you been crying then?”
“This is a long story, you will get bored.”
“No, no! Please….”
So, we both settled more comfortably into his chair, and he started to tell his tale.
“Okay- I’ll try to make it short! You see, I once was in love with a beautiful girl. She wasn’t just pretty outside, but she had an inner beauty. And she also was a strong woman, very independent. We dated several times, hiked together, studied together, and for several months everything seemed perfect. But somehow a coldness appeared between us, and we saw less and less of each other. I never quite understood what happened. She sent me some poems, which I read but didn’t understand. Unfortunately, I’m not a poet myself, or even an artist. Then she got a job overseas and left. But the evening before, she brought me a little cassette she had recorded…”
“What was on it?” I asked eagerly.
“That’s just the point: I didn’t listen to it! My recorder had broken down. I was studying for an exam. And then the little cassette disappeared.”
I must have looked very disappointed, because he cuddled me and said:
“Only today, just now, I rediscovered it and was able to listen and pay attention to it.”
“And that’s why you cried?”
“Yes, that’s why I cried. It was so beautiful. Heavenly. She had put some of her poems to music, and she had done the recording very early in the morning, in the garden, with birds singing in the background. And with her music, and the way she sang, I understood what she wanted to tell me. There was a promise for the future, at least some hope that we might join again some day. But…”
“Where is she now?” I dared to ask.
“She is a grandmother, like I am a grandfather. We haven’t met again. We exchanged some letters and postcards, then stopped writing altogether. So, little Annie: train your head and your heart to pay attention to the important things of life. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
I dried grandfather’s last tear with my sleeve, and this time I didn’t skip out of the room as usual.