Mr. Hardwick lived across the street in a large white house with a tin roof. In front were two large Canterbury trees surrounded by pink azalea plants and between the trees a sidewalk went up to two steps and a screen door. The front porch was large and screened in from just below the ceiling down almost to the floor.

In his seventies he was medium height and wiry. His fine white hair was often wind blown like straw and his deep set grey blue eyes were penetrating. He often walked down the street, stoop shouldered and slightly shuffling with his small brown dog. When I walked past him he seemed to always look down.

Several years before my mom brought my grand dad to Florida and found him an apartment two blocks away. In his mid seventies he was still active walking up the hills of our small town. Almost everyday I rode my bike to visit him and we would eat oreos and drink bottles of coke as we played dominoes. I also started mowing his yard.

For almost two years I would ride over there, leave my bike on his porch, and walk in the front door. He always had bags of caramel squares and chocolate covered cherries. I would grab a handful of caramel squares and we’d sit on the porch and he’d ask how school was and I’d always mumble it was okay.

Gradaddy was not a story teller and I was not much of a talker so the conversation was short and usually about school or baseball. Then we’d go inside and break out the oreos and cokes and begin playing dominoes. He always called the extra dominoes that you drew after playing the bone yard as we listened to the news on his old radio.

He started to get forgetful and sometimes got confused when he was walking or would start saying stuff that didn’t make sense. At Church he made faces at the choir. Mom said it was hardening of the arteries and he was put in a group home where he died about a year later of a stroke.

The funeral was in Batesville, Arkansas and it was dreary and cold the whole time. Sitting in the service was like a dream and I kept wanting to open the coffin to make sure it was him. Being twelve I never had any family die. It was something I couldn’t understand and I thought about grand daddy a lot even at school. 

That was when Mr. Hardwick entered my life. He came over to our house and asked if I could mow his lawn. It was okay with my parents then they began talking and mom asked him how he was doing. He said he was getting by alright. Mrs. Hardwick had died about six months before. 

I started mowing his yard every two weeks and he would pay me and I would leave then one day he offered cheese and crackers with tea. My feet could barely touch the blue gray wooden floor as I sat in a large rocking chair. Several other rockers with small tables were placed along the porch which was about thirty feet long. 

Soon I started going over there just to visit and hear his stories. Bobo, a small brown and white dog that looked like a collie laid at his feet as Mr. Hardwick in his dignified English baritone talked about going from England to Canada on a boat when he was 18. Sometimes he paused as his eyes twinkled then he softly chuckled as he remembered something. 

He worked in different lumber camps until he reached the Pacific and told me about spit freezing in the air and large stacks of flapjacks with butter and maple syrup for breakfast. He said a hay wagon ran over him once and smiled when he said nothing can kill you when you’re twenty.

Smoking a cigar, he waved it or looked at it then would start talking about hopping trains in Alberta. He would slide the train door closed then make a small fire to stay warm. Sometimes he saw Indians on trails in the Northwest Territory. The way he described things made it seem so real. 

Over time he became like a grandfather especially after my sister left for college. He would ask about school or life in general and sometimes I told him my problems. High school was hard and at times I felt I didn’t belong anywhere…in a way we were kindred spirits. One time he told me that even when you feel alone, God is always with you. 

He quoted poetry and loved Tennyson ….. “May there be no moaning at the bar when I ship out to sea.” He often quoted that line and now I understand it has to do with not grieving when someone dies but remembering the good life they had. Mr. Hardwick was a self reliant, proud man and didn’t want people to feel sorry for him.

Sometimes he read his own poetry and explained it to me as Bobo laid at his feet. He liked to talk about how certain simple habits help you live a good life and he explained that working in his yard gave him a reason to get up in the morning. I think it also helped him focus his mind away from bad thoughts.

Being private and reflective with no family and few friends he was often alone. His independence also isolated him; church people asked him to attend but he said his yard was his church and where he found God. I really respected this about him…he was an individualist who thought for himself.

 I stayed with Mr. Hardwick one time for a week. At night in his easy chair smoking a cigar he talked about meeting his wife and how they would talk. After they married she helped him as a photographer. He would nod, then wake up as his cigar burned his pants. Sometimes I put the cigar in the ashtray.

There was a real honesty about him I admired. All he wanted was to live his life on his own simple terms without having to pretend he was something else. He always talked to me like I was an intelligent person and he was someone that just wanted to be left alone to care for his azalea bushes which gave him some kind of peace. 

I sometimes wonder why we meet certain people in our lives. Could it be that there are a few people in everyone’s life that God brings to teach certain lessons and to help them? I think Mr. Hardwick was one of those special people in my life.

He came along right after my grandfather died when I was entering adolescence and provided the guidance and understanding I really needed. For that I will always think of him as my other grandfather.