Free Grandpère by Janet Romain Page A

would take a long time, so it was better if we made sure it never went out. You could heap the ashes on the coals of the fire, and it would still be hot even if you were gone for several days. But when it was cold like this, we always kept it going. My father had a flint that struck sparks to start fires, but more often we used a fire stick. I can remember the first time I saw a match. I thought it was so clever.”
    “That must have been a hard life.”
    “No, it wasn’t hard. It was just the way it was, and we were happy to go and find firewood, it was just one of the things that people did to live. Although it would be hard to go back to that way after having matches and paper. Maybe I am just getting soft.”
    “No,” Rose says. “You don’t even know what soft is. Some of the people in the home are soft. They can’t dress themselves or even walk. They need people to help them do every little thing. We need to spoon the food into them. They give up on even trying. That’s soft.”
    “I wonder why they don’t die, if they are that far gone?” he says.
    “Actually, I think they are already mostly gone. Their bodies are still alive, but the essence of who they were is missing,” Rose says. “Their spirit is gone, but their bodies continue to live, because the body has its own will to live, even when their soul has called the spirit home.” She sounds positive about this.
    Grandpère nods. “In the old times, when the Great Spirit called them home, sometimes the old people would disappear in the bush. Sometimes we found them and other times not. We would sing for them and burn their possessions to help them find their way.”
    “I think it was a better way,” says Rose. “It’s not very dignified to continue living when your body is alive but unoccupied.”
    “Well, I think I will keep body and spirit together for a while yet. I still like to be on this earth, even though this old body has seen better days,” Grandpère says.
    Rose spends the afternoon with us, and we have an early dinner so she can get home before it gets dark, which is about four-thirty at this time of the year. She has brought us a carrot salad and a whole roast chicken stuffed with rice. We three eat the whole chicken and still manage to put down the pie. We are content, and I compliment her on her good cooking. She tells me that it was not all that special, food just tastes better when you don’t have to cook it yourself. She should know; she’s been alone for over ten years now since her husband passed over. She seldom gets to see her only child, a daughter who lives in England. She went there for a holiday after high school and met and married her husband there. They have visited only three times, and Rose has been there twice. It think it’s a good thing that Rose has a job that she enjoys, for it is lonely for an older person to live by herself.
    She has been telling us about the Wii game that the lodge bought to entertain the old folks. She tells me that I should buy one, that Grandpère and I would both like it. It sounds weird to me, but I tell her I will look around next time I’m in town.
    Rose keeps up on current events, and she is full of excitement that a black man is running for president of the USA. I’m impressed too; I never thought I would see the day. Grandpère says it would be even more surprising if an Indian was running. Rose is worried about the recession and says that people are losing all their savings.
    “Serves them right, silly buggers, trusting the banks with all their money,” he says. “Those banks are just stealing their money. The banks can print more money any time they want.” Grandpère never did trust banks. He’s more liable to put his money in a jar and bury it than to hand it over to a bank.
    I’m inclined to agree with him. Lorne and I never did have any savings. He always said, “Money ain’t got no home,” and we spent any extra money we ever had. We didn’t waste it; we paid