[title subtitle=”words: Stoney Stamper
Images: courtesy April and Stoney Stamper”][/title]
“Rise and shine, Stone! Coffee’s hot, biscuits are on!” I can still hear my grandfather’s voice bellowing through his big house. Every morning, just like clockwork, he’d wake me up at six in the morning with those words. It was actually fairly generous of him to allow me to sleep until six because he’d already been up for an hour or so by that time. But he liked to spend that first hour by himself each morning. He’d put the coffee on, take a shower and get dressed, except for his starched dress shirt that had the initials “CWS” stitched on the cuff. He’d wait to put that on until he’d finished with his breakfast. So each day, when I first saw him after waking up, he’d be wearing a tight, white undershirt. His legs crossed, drinking his coffee from a cup with a matching saucer, and reading the Bible. Every day.
I’d take a quick shower and get dressed, then join him in the dining room by fifteen after six, because when you’re a thirteen-year-old boy, it doesn’t take too long to get ready. Our timing was so precise that when I came into the dining room each day, the biscuits would be ready to come out of the oven. I’d tell him good morning, and he’d answer, “Good mornin’, honey.” I’d pour my own cup of coffee and then go to the kitchen to take the biscuits out and set them on top of the stove. Then I’d get out the butter and strawberry jelly. I loved our mornings together. We had our routine down pat. But it wasn’t always that way. Let me back up a tad.
When I was eleven years old, my grandmother, Clarice June Stamper, began having trouble with her leg. At first, the doctors thought she had a pinched nerve, but after some more testing, we discovered that it was much more serious. She had ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The disease was swift. In just two years, it had taken over her body. On December 28, 1992, after spending the Christmas holiday at Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, her suffering finally ended. Our family was lost, but even more so, my grandfather was lost. He had lost his partner. They’d been married forty-four years and together since high school. Even though we’d all known this day was coming, we really didn’t seem as prepared for her leaving as we should have been. That night, we went to Papa’s house to sit with him. The whole family was there. My loud family was eerily silent. It seemed that all of the air had been taken out of us. Later, as everyone began to pack up and leave, I asked Papa if he’d want me to stay with him. He smiled for the first time in days and said, “Well, sure!” I told my mom and dad I wanted to stay with him, and they said that was fine.
Ain’t nothing that some butter and strawberry jelly can’t fix.
The next morning, I heard him in the kitchen. I heard cabinet doors slamming and pots and pans rattling and banging together. I walked in to find him opening a can of biscuits. The coffee was already made. I said, “Good morning. Do you need any help?” He said, “Good mornin’, honey! Nope, I got it under control. Go get you a shower, and I’ll have it ready when you’re done.” I did as I was told, but when I came back, there was a cloud of smoke hovering near the ceiling, and on the stove sat a pan of burned, black biscuits. He said, “Mighta left ’em in a minute or two too long.” I laughed at him and said, “You reckon?” He said, “Ain’t nothing that some butter and strawberry jelly can’t fix,” and then we sat down at the table to have one of the more memorable breakfasts I’ve ever had. An old man, a young boy, a plate of burned biscuits, and a conspicuously empty chair where only a few days ago my grandmother had sat. Neither of us really knew what to say, which was an uncommon situation for both of us. As I watched my papa slather his burned biscuit with butter and strawberry jelly, he quietly said, “Lord, I miss her.” I tried to say something, but I knew that if I opened my mouth the slightest bit, I wouldn’t be able to control the crying that bubbled near the surface. So instead, I nodded my head, while staring blankly down at my plate. I fought back those tears with all my might and ate that burnt biscuit and strawberry jelly.
Over the next few weeks, I gradually moved more of my clothes and other items from my family’s house to Papa’s, which was only a couple hundred yards across the pasture. I stayed with him every night. He needed me there, and it made me feel useful. On most nights, we’d get dinner at a restaurant in town. My mom, or my aunt, or my cousin would come by a few times each week and do our laundry, and I did the dishes every night before bed. And then each morning, of course, we had our biscuits and jelly.
It tickled me how much he enjoyed his jelly in the mornings. It wasn’t some special brand. As a matter of fact, it didn’t really matter what brand it was; he’d eat it and act like it was the best thing he ever ate. Shoot, he’d even eat the little free packets of it that sat on the tables of the greasy-spoon diners that he loved so much. It makes me wonder, Did he just like the taste, or was it something else? Was it because the taste or the smell of it took him back to another time? Maybe back to a picnic with my grandmother when they were young, or perhaps to an early morning breakfast, sitting at his own grandpa’s knee.
It’s been twenty-five years since those mornings. Such a long time ago. But just a few Saturdays ago, I was sitting alone on the front porch, drinking my coffee, when my twelve-year-old daughter, Emma, came onto the porch where I sat. She said, “I’m going to cook some biscuits.” About twenty minutes later, she came back and said, “The biscuits are ready if you want one, but I burned them a little bit.” I grinned at her and said, “You know, my grandpa used to tell me, ‘It’s nothing that a little bit of strawberry jelly can’t fix.'”
Stoney Stamper
is the author of the popular parenting blog, The Daddy Diaries. He and his wife April have three daughters: Abby, Emma and Gracee. Originally from northeast Oklahoma, the Stampers now live in Tyler, Texas. For your daily dose of The Daddy Diaries, visit Stoney on Facebook or on his website, thedaddydiaries.net.
