You are My Sunshine

 Sometimes you have to search for the story and sometimes you struggle to find the right words to tell it.  Then, every once in a while the story is just there and it tells itself.

Jack turned nine last week.  It was his single-minded goal to take the opportunity to move past the little boy bedroom of recent years to a retreat complete with a gaming center.  He had the game console but needed a keyboard, mouse, and desk to complete the desired corner of his room.  His vision included a firm plan of his grandmother cleaning his room to ready it for the assembly of the desk by grandpa.  As the aforementioned grandmother, I raised the flag "uh, it's your goal, so I will gladly help you clean the room, but it is your charge."  On Saturday, we cleaned.  

The task progressed as you would guess: piles for clothes, trash, toys to keep, and toys to donate. Finally, we were going to address the huge pile of books in the corner - the only evidence there had been a shelf there until earlier last week.  I floated the question, are there specific series you would like to keep?  Special books to keep?  A certain author?  The answer - everything goes except the sports books.  Oh no, no, child.  We will sort through to check for the specials to keep, the specials to go to your cousin, and then finally pack some up for the library.

The sorting was progressing - some concessions were made to keep more than just the sports books with decent piles made for the gifting of other books.  Then, he was just gone.  There was utter silence in the room.  I looked around the small room and there was no sign of him.  How did he get out without me seeing him?  I yelled his name to only to have a small voice from directly behind me on the floor say "What?'"  I turn to see him quietly reading a baby board book "You Are My Sunshine."  Would you like to keep that one, I ask.  He thought for a moment and replied, "I'd like to give this to PaJim (his paternal grandfather) for Father's Day.  We used to sing this book together."  This was probably the sweetest, most heartfelt thing I had heard in a while.  We put the book aside for Jack to take to PaJim the following day.

We finished the cleaning, the desk was assembled and his game station began to take shape.  Little did we know on the other side of our small town, PaJim passed away very unexpectedly one hour after Jack had announced his intent to gift their shared book.  Instead of taking the book to gift to his grandfather on Father's Day, the day dawned with Jack's dad arriving to tell Jack and his sister of PaJim's passing. 

The book will forever remain with Jack, as will the memories of those toddler days, laying on the couch singing "You are My Sunshine" with his favorite person in the whole world.  He was reliving those days as he sat behind me Saturday on the floor.  He will always have those memories.  PaJim's time was well-spent  in those early days and there could not be a more fitting tribute to a grandfather than  the re-gift of that book.  PaJim will remain as Jack's sunshine. The legacy will now live on in Jack's heart and maybe someday he can pass the singing/reading of the book on to his own grandchild.