I remember the first time I discovered that my grandpa had eyelashes. I was five or six, and we were visiting the farm for the weekend. It was that delicious time of year when the air and skies start to hint of autumn, but the grass is still a lush summer green. I woke up early that morning and found Grandpa already in the kitchen with coffee, dressed in his dark gray coveralls and ready for a day of farm chores. The coveralls felt coarse and scratchy when he hugged me.
“Are you hungry? Do you want some breakfast?” he asked.
“Okay, Grandpa.”
He poured me milk and Cheerios (which he called “damn floaters”) in a small brown bowl and then toasted me a piece of white bread with butter—a treat we only ever had at the farm. I watched him shuffle about the kitchen. He was tall, with long, thin fingers. He had a big nose that honked when he blew it, and large ears that stuck out from the sides of his head. I would have recognized them anywhere. Grandpa sat with me while I ate, then headed outside to start his day.
The farm boasted a bright green John Deere mower tractor, and we kids considered it great fun to get a ride on it. Later that morning, I caught sight of Grandpa mowing from the porch windows.
“Can I ride the tractor, Mom?” I asked.
“Put your jacket on and go ask Grandpa, sweetie,” she said.
My red windbreaker was hanging on a hook in the back hallway, surrounded by dusty old coats and a variety of Grandpa’s hats, each bearing the name of a different feed or fertilizer company. The back door was red, just like my jacket, and it slammed behind me as I bounced down the back steps and skirted the house to the front yard to find him.
The day was crisp, but the sun was hot on my light blonde hair. My head had that nice, sunbaked feeling that made the rest of my body shiver from the comfort of it. The air smelled fresh, but with a hint of road dust, earth, and timelessness. Fritzy, the three-legged dog, hopped over to me and I patted her on her mottled red back, hoping she wouldn’t follow me. She had lost her foot to that riding mower a few years back.
In the front yard, Grandpa was making neat stripes of cut grass, parallel to the gravel road we always arrived on and had nicknamed “the bumpy road.” I hung back, still frightened a bit by the mower when it was running. It was loud and intimidating, and I sure didn’t want to get close enough to lose my foot under it. When Grandpa saw me he waved and stopped the mower so I could approach.
“Can I have a ride, Grandpa?”
“Well, sure!”
He reached out to help me step onto the foot platform and then pulled me onto his lap. My legs dangled down next to the gears, and he had to maneuver a bit to get around me to shift. We lurched forward and then smoothed out as the mower hit its rhythm. It shook and vibrated as we rode, making my legs tingle with buzzy numbness. I was conscious of where my legs fell against Grandpa’s and wondered if it bothered him when my feet would bang against his shins as we rode over a bumpy place.
We didn’t move very fast, but it was still fun to ride and thrilling to be so close to a large, dangerous engine. Fritzy watched us lazily from her shady napping spot. Mom came to the window to look for me and waved. We waved back. Helping to mow made me feel important, and I hoped Grandpa was proud of me. After a few runs back and forth we finished the front yard and moved towards the strip of grass by the side of the house.
We pulled up next to the porch steps and Grandpa suddenly killed the engine. “Look there!” he said, pointing toward the steps. I couldn’t tell what he was seeing at first. “There,” he said. “See the toad?” The toad was the exact grainy, sandy color of the cement steps.
When I glanced up at Grandpa, who was leaning forward to look at the toad, I had a clear view of his face from the side. For the first time I really noticed his eyes behind the glasses I had never seen him without. And there, in a patchy line along the lid of his eye . . . were eyelashes. They caught me completely off guard. Although Grandpa was a gentle, even-tempered man, I somehow hadn’t expected him to have something as delicate on his face as eyelashes. They were short and fragile looking—a light brown fringe that shot straight out from his eyelids. I was fascinated. I tried to show some interest in the toad, but I was much more interested in stealing looks at Grandpa’s eyes. I suddenly felt overwhelmed by my discovery.
“Do you want to keep riding?” Grandpa asked.
“I think I’m done, Grandpa.”
I felt like I needed to go off by myself for a while and think about things. He waited until I had skittered off toward the back door before he started the mower again. Back inside, my mom asked, “How was your ride, honey?”
“Good.”
I made my way up the creaky farm stairs with the pretense of needing to use the bathroom, but I went instead into the small bedroom where we kids usually slept, and I sat on the twin bed by the window. I thought about those eyelashes, and knew that something had changed. I couldn’t grasp what, but I knew it was important. I thought of those little, brown lashes, and could suddenly imagine Grandpa as a small boy. I could imagine him crying and feeling lonely. I could imagine him having all kinds of deep feelings that I didn’t know about and had never considered anyone but me having. The immensity of it made my eyes fill with tears. I sat there and wept quietly, staring out the window.
After a couple minutes, Grandpa and the mower came into view. They puttered along the edge of the driveway, Grandpa giving his nose a quick wipe. I watched him, wondering what he was thinking and if he wished I’d stayed longer to help him mow. I wondered if he would go back and check on the toad. And I wondered what he would think if he knew that his eyes were lined with a fringe of lash that was making his young granddaughter cry.
Looking back, I’ve tried to pinpoint why the discovery of Grandpa’s eyelashes had such an impact on my five-year-old self. I believe there are moments along the journey of childhood where we start awakening to our bigger selves, bit by bit. We start noticing things outside of us, and start thinking more deeply about things we don’t understand. In that quiet moment, on the old John Deere, those stubby eyelash hairs made me realize this man wasn’t just “my grandpa.” In an instant he had become more of a stranger to me and yet somehow more precious.
The tears I shed up in the farm bedroom came partly because I felt selfish and guilty for narrowly thinking about this man as the ride-giver, the cat-feeder, the toast-maker. When in reality he was his own person, fragile, complex, and vulnerable. I remember feeling like I needed to protect him somehow. And then I felt helpless because I was too young to know how to do that. When we left the farm that evening, I remember pressing my check to the car window and thinking about those eyelashes and my sweet grandpa all the way home.
As the years went by, I often snuck peeks at Grandpa’s eyes. I wanted to remember that moment on the brisk, sunny farm day when my young self woke up just a little bit. I know that as time passes and I approach old age myself, I may lose the memory of his voice, or the way his hands looked, or the feel of his scratchy coveralls. But the eyelashes—they will stay, and I will always feel humbled by them.