Ever since I can remember, every week consisted of a visit to my grandparent’s house. My sister and I would burst through the front door and embrace my grandpa and grandma in a bear hug, knowing I would be treated to a cosmic brownie afterwards.
As I close my eyes, I can recall every precise detail of the outdated house. From the eagle mounted above the garage to the Garfield magnet on the fridge; it all gave me a sense of comfort knowing it would still be there when I came for my next visit, waiting for me to leer at. Perhaps the signature piece was the over-sized print of their wedding picture. Three enormous prints of different pictures lined the living room wall with their wedding picture in the center, engulfed by a gaudy, gold frame. Somehow, it became the centerpiece of the house itself. My grandfather, a navy veteran, looks as handsome as ever in his best suit, while my grandma resembles a nineteen-fifties movie star in a white tee length dress.
I guess I have always been fascinated with fairytales and love, so it’s no wonder that the sepia-colored picture has always intrigued me. But when my grandma started slowly deteriorating from Alzheimer’s disease, and my grandfather was faced with the duty of caregiver, the wedding photo that was taken so many years before began to have a new meaning.
You see, my grandparents were never the type to very publicly display the love they had for each other, so it was when my grandpa became caregiver to my grandma when I fully understood the profound love they had for each other. To me, the picture started to symbolize the ultimate love story wrapped up in one simple photograph.
When I was a young child, I would gaze at the picture and ponder what they were like in their prime years. Was my grandma a bubbly, outgoing, social-lite? Or a reserved, sweet, studious, young girl? Was my grandpa a ladies man? These questions engrossed my active mind while I tried to figure out what the newlyweds in the photo were like.
I sit on the living room’s cold, hardwood floor watching people move in and out of the morose house taking furniture with them. All that’s left is the enormous wedding photo with the flamboyant gold frame. Instead of pondering those simple, surface questions, I stare at the picture for a while as I pretend it’s just another visit to grandpa and grandma’s house.
Every time I look at the downsized eight-by-ten version of the photo that now resides on a antique table in my living room, I see the last piece of evidence to the legacy of a love story that’s waiting to be told.