Open Writing

I must have known him most of my life. He was always around. One of my earliest recollections of him was his great height, which to my very young eyes made him as tall and as imposing as the oak tree at the bottom of our garden.

I was told that I used to haul myself up onto his knees by his trousers even before I could walk, to stare wonderingly at his craggy face and pull his long beard. I had an early memory of being at first startled by his deep laughter and exaggerated arm movements, but very soon learnt that those sudden bursts of sound and vigorous movements meant me no harm.

I remembered that he smelt differently from my mother and father. It was rather a pleasant and comforting smell and I grew to love it. Later on I learnt that he had smoked a pipe, but never in our house where my mother was rather particular about such things and never near me till I was a lot older. He made me laugh. He read to me and played card and other games with me. He was there to look after me when my parents were not around.

As I grew older he became a companion. He taught me things I did not learn in school. He himself was not well-educated but he had a wisdom that was beyond books and he passed on some of this to me. He had a varied and interesting life as a young man and had been in the First World War and been taken prisoner. He had interesting and exciting tales to tell and I lapped them up. He taught me to fish, a past-time I enjoy even to this day….my father never did like fishing; he had not the patience for it.

He was always there for me. He was there when I got married, although he grumbled about having to wear a “monkey suit”. He was there when I brought my babies home from the hospital, cradling them gently in his great arms as he must have at one time cradled me.

I expected him always to be around somehow. But one day, unexpectedly, he was no longer there. He passed away quietly and alone in his sleep and to my great sorrow I was not there for him. I was away on a business trip and rushed back only to be in time for his funeral, to be one of the few mourners that he had. He was just a lonely old man who seemed to have focused all his love first on me and then on my family in his later years. Now, all I have left of him is his well-loved pipe which had seen him through the thick and thin years of his life.

There is not much more to say about my friend who had been a companion from my babyhood through to my manhood except to say that his name was Saul.