Eli and Percy stared intently at the checkered board. Pawns, rooks, knights, a bishop and a queen stood off the board on the concrete table top. One of Percy’s bishops lay alone unnoticed at the chess player’s feet.
Jesse sat scooted to the edge of the bench and was looking up at the squirrel who at times seemed interested in the three brothers, other times barked as if they posed a threat. At the moment, Jesse and the little creature just stared at one another. Frustrated and losing patience with his his brother taking an exorbitant amount of time to execute his next move, Eli looked up at Jesse.
“You two having a conversation over there Jess?”
Jesse hesitated before responding, not wanting to break off his supposed stare-down with the squirrel. “Ya, he says yer gonna lose Eli.”
At that Percy’s concentration was broken. “Ha! I guess that little tree rat is smarter than I thought! Why don’t you just give up now, Eli?”
“Give up? Give up because you two old men in your little fantasy world believe that fluff-tailed barker is calling it? Make yer dang move Perce!”
“Shaddup Eli. Gimme some room here. Quiet!”
Jesse and Eli shared a look and a shrug. Eli turned back to the board and Jesse back to the squirrel, who was now gone. Jesse turned his attention to the new faces now wandering the park. Without much focus on any of the people, he thought about how he and his brothers constantly bantered back and forth. His rotating gaze stopped at his brothers as Percy finally moved a piece on the board.
“Finally! Sheesh,” an exasperated Eli commented. With this break in the two player’s concentration, Jesse pondered aloud.
“Hey Percy, Eli. What’s the most sensible thing you’ve ever heard someone say?”
Percy and Eli, as if stunned, looked up at one another and in unison rolled their eyes. Percy got in the first jab, “It’s your move! At the moment that seems pretty sensible to me!”
Eli smiled wide at Percy, then realized it was more than poking fun at Jesse but an actual command. To spite Percy, he moved his attention to Jesse’s question. Looking over at Jesse, he thoughtfully responded.
“I’d have to say, Jess, what pops in my mind is something Granddad used to say to me. I don’t know if he ever said it to either one of you though.”
Percy looked on beyond Eli across the table, then up, raising his hands with his eyes, “Oh here we go again. Why don’t we just forget the game and sit and listen to Jesse philosophize?”
“Loosen up, Percy. What’s the matter, you so old yer tired of thinking, of pondering things about life? I have always admired Jesse’s propensity to question things.”
“Listen to you and your big words. All right. What was the question again Jesse?”
Jesse, smiling wide at the support offered by Eli, repeated the question, “What’s the most sensible thing you’ve ever heard someone say? Eli, now that your older brother is listening, what were you going to say?”
“Grandad, more than once, but the first time he said it was the most moving. Something I have often repeated to myself – and tried to get my grandchildren to ponder. One time in he and Grandma’s garage in Sacramento everyone else was in the house. I was on my way out to climb that tree in their front yard and he was on his way in with a bag of ice from the freezer. We kinda ran into each other and he kinda stopped me and asked me where the fire was. I laughed and just said I was going to go play in the front yard. At that he sat down on the step that led up into the house, put down the bag of ice beside him and took my shoulders in his hands and looked me straight in the eye. He said to me, ‘Eli, here’s something for you to ponder when you get as high as you can in that tree. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. What are you going to do with it?'”
As Eli began his tale of remembrance of the brother’s grandparent’s home so many years back when they were all just children, both Percy and Jesse relaxed in an air of sweet memories and listened intently to Eli. After quoting their grandfather, the three sat in silence for almost a minute before Percy responded first.
“Wow. Granddad never said anything like that to me. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Ug, at my stage and age that question has little ponderance for me any more. Still, it somehow makes sense to consider. What did you think it meant back then when you were afterward up in that tree, Eli?”
“It wowed me. I kept repeating it over and over aloud, each time trying to focus on each word, then the entire statement. I don’t think I really figured out what was behind the statement until long after Granddad was gone. I would have loved to sit and have a long talk with him on what he thought it meant. He said it a few more times over the years but it was that first time I heard it that really impacted me.”
“So what did you figure out it meant?” asked Percy.
“I’ll tell you what it meant,” Jesse chimed in. “I don’t think he ever shared that with me, but I wish he had.”
Before Eli answered Percy, he looked at Jesse, “So what do you think it meant, or means, Jesse?”
“It means the past is gone. It means we ought to look forward, forgive our past, whatever that may mean to each of us, then pull ourselves up and go forward into the future with a fresh sense of courage. That’s how I see it. What about you, Eli? Tell Perce and me what you finally came to realize it meant.”
“Well, to be honest, I had many different versions of my interpretation as I was growing up. But remember after Dad died and Mom was giving us stuff of his and the family’s when she was getting ready to move into that mobile home trying to simplify her life? It was then I was kinda made the family historian I guess, because she gave me a storage bin full of records. When I finally got around to going through all of the material in that container, I ran across a lot of papers where our other Granddad had written down his thoughts. On one scrap he wrote, ‘Life is motion, action and energy. When we do not advance, we fall back. If we stop, we are beaten and ultimately outdistanced. If we are silent, we are soon forgotten. We cannot stand still.’ I think that is the meaning of ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’, or at least the answer to the question that Granddad attached to it – ‘What are you going to do with it?'”
Again the three sat in silence as the their shared past filled with family and the innocence and wonder of childhood floated through their minds and wound its way into each’s heart. More than a minute this time went by before Eli looked over at Percy and noticed two tears trickling down his cheeks. Realizing his brother noticed, Percy was quick to wipe them away, then said, “Man, I really miss those days. I barely remember Dad’s father. I’m glad you have all of that stuff, Eli. It’s a shame he died only months before you were born.”
“Well,” responded Eli, “He sure has made a huge impression on my life. I just waited too long before I got to know him through all of the stuff he left.”
While Eli and Percy exchanged thoughts about their grandfathers, Jesse listened intently, then spoke up.
“And now we are the grandfathers. Maybe we should take our grandfather’s valuable words and start passing them on before we are gone, and with us the wisdom those two harnessed.”
The three looked around at each other in silent agreement, each beginning to ponder within himself how he would do just that. Almost in unison, the three breathed deep and straightened themselves up before slowly letting out the breath. All three were smiling wide as Jesse reverted back to his distant gazing around the park, once again deep in thought. Percy and Eli gently turned their attention back to the game. Eli relaxed and followed Percy’s command to make the next move. His eyes darted around at the pieces left on the board and suddenly smiled wide, baring his teeth. He looked up at Percy, then back to the board as he reached out to move a knight.
“Check!”