Grandparents

Colors

"What?" he asked.

I loved the fact that I could ask Poppy totally random, off the wall questions and instead of rolling his eyes, ignoring my youthful babbling, or brushing aside my endless curiosities, he'd answer me.

He paid attention.

He took my inquiries seriously.

"I said," I said to him, "Why are lightbulb colors always white?"

"Say what now?" He repeated, adjusting himself in the black, orange and blue plaid chair that squeaked when it rocked, to better hear my question.

" Yeah," I continued. "I mean, you never go into a room and see a light that's turned on and the bulb is blue...or green, or red, or whatever. Maybe it's a yellowish white but really it's still in that same normal whitish color family, you know?"

I think he might have raised an eyebrow of puzzlement at me that day.

Imagine my delighted surprise the following weekend, then (I usually visited on the weekends) when I went down my grandparents' basement (which in today's lingo would've been deemed my grandfather's man cave) and before my lit-up eyes were high hat ceiling lights, in a different color throughout the room. Red, blue, yellow and green, each one! No more white lights.

I'll never forget that day.

And do you know, those lights stayed lit for years!

That's the kind of guy my Grandfather was; the person who shined a world of loving light and color into your life. Into my life.