Como Estas

I have limited Spanish.  That was born out of a selfish need for my mother to separate me from my father after their divorce.  And a selfish need by me to not only please my mother, but also my selfish need to not have to learn outside of school.  I was a bit on the lazy side.  

The Spanish that I did learn came in snippets from my grandparents, from my limited attention span applied to a high school class, and working in the food service industry for half of a decade.  So I can swear, and I can get the basics across but past that.  Nada.

But yesterday I had a moment.  I was walking down one of the alleys near work, I had dropped my bike off for a tune up, and was smoking a Lucky Strike, and there was the elderly man with a huge cart full of cans digging through one of the dumpsters.  He looked up, and I saw my grandpa.  Not physically, he has been dead some years now.  But psychicly, he was that man, worn by sun, and age, but bright eyed.  Looking to make another buck, not because he is greedy, or needy, but because that is what he knows how to do.  He knows how to work, and how to never stop, and to love the movement, and that strain, and the life that is lived in being active.

That was my grandpa.  He never stopped.  He was full of life until the very end.  And I hate that he is gone.

I look up and there he is.  Digging through dumpsters to get cans.  Bright eyes, dirty shirt, cart full of cans.

"Hola," He says to me.

"Como Estas?" it comes out of me like I know what I'm doing.

"Bien, Gracias," says my grandpa.  And I know that he is, but I still wish I could see him.

File under Virtue.