My grandfather taught me my first French words. Over homemade oatmeal in his old house, he spoke all the French he remembered from his childhood in Quebec. "Fermez-la bouche," or "close your mouth," he said with a rasping chuckle.
He was a glowing retiree then, easing into his eighties with the well-dressed charm of a man coming into his own. I was a bright-eyed and imaginative gymnast who stood 4 feet, 4 inches tall.
Now, we are both growing old. He is 95, and I am 20. He lives in a nursing home in my sleepy Michigan hometown that smells inexorably of tuna casserole. In a handful of days, I will leave to study in France and see the world as only an idealistic 20-year-old can. We are two generations apart, separated by a distance that cannot be crossed. More and more, however, it seems as though our lives are intertwined. More and more, it seems as though his aging shapes my adventure of growing up.
I remember the late-night phone call during the November of my freshman year at college, when I first learned that my grandfather had suffered a stroke. Sitting cross-legged in bed afterwards, I had stayed up all night staring into the gauzy city night outside my window. I suddenly felt fragile and very far from home. I remember, too, my first trip home from college to visit him in the hospital at Thanksgiving. Staring at the orange spackle on the hospital floor, I could not look at his face. I could not bear the fog in his eyes when he didn't recognize me, either.
Now, we are both growing old. Robust and immortal, my grandfather had always been proof that you can go home again. However, as I traveled further and further into my own adulthood, he came to represent all that I missed. Each time I returned from college, home felt a little quieter and a little less my own. I would go to the nursing home to visit, but the tug of my restlessness made its pea-green walls, helpless screams and the horrible choreography of old age more bearable. I had my youth as an amulet and excuse: I would soon be leaving again. My experience of growing up came to be punctuated by my trips home during which I truly grew up.
In the weeks that I have been home before leaving for France, I have begun again to say good-bye to my grandfather. He beams when I visit him.
"This is my granddaughter, Ali, and she is going to France," he said once to tablemates before dinner.
"I didn't much like France when I was there," a bespectacled grandfather at the table replied.
"Why?" I asked.
"It was D-Day."
My grandfather has been vacillating between near-death and relative health for two years. I am constantly emotionally in a place of being ready to say good-bye. Leaving for France, however, sharpens my grief. See the world, I must, but with that comes leaving behind those I love deeply. Traveling is more than what I see and experience - it's about what compromises I make for my curiosity.
I feel guilty for leaving, but then I remember that this is the time I must grow up and into the world. I need to be able to teach my grandchildren French over homemade oatmeal. I feel guilty until I remember how much my grandfather glows when he says, "This is my granddaughter, and she is going to France." He needs my youth as much as I do.
I cannot unravel my experience of growing up from his growing old. We both must grapple with what we leave behind.
My grandfather is 95, I am 20, and we are growing old together.
You can reach this columnist at thescene@theeagleonline.com.