When you just know

The first memory as a 3-year-old child I have of just knowing when something was gonna happen was when I knew that my great-grandfather was going to die. We had been visiting him in his apartment I loved going there because he had birds. Budgies a yellow one and a blue one.

We lived in Denmark at the time. We didn’t immigrate to Canada until it was 4 years old. I remember his walls had all the family photos on them, and he had a lot of Nik-naks. He also had a large brown box full of huge cigars. They might not have been huge, but they were to a 3-year-old!

I remember going and visiting my Great Grandpa in the hospital. I was brought into a room with all these other older grandfathers. No one was sitting. Everyone was standing. My Great-grandpa was in his tie-up hospital robe. As we’re all the other men. They were all standing around talking and laughing. I think some of them were smoking too.

Now that I reflect on it. I must have been inside a smoking room with him. I remember a massive glass sliding door attached to a glass wall. Everything would look significantly larger to a 3-year-old!

As I stood in that smoking room and watched the men talk, I just knew which ones were gonna die. There were about six patients in the smoke room. All laughing and joking with my great-grandpa. Most of them make comments about me. His cute little great-grandchild. I didn’t understand half of what they were saying. But I could well enough pick out who was gonna leave the hospital and who wasn’t.

I knew that was the last time I would ever see my great-grandpa. I felt anxious about it. But in no way sad. Years later, when I told this memory to my mother. She was surprised at how much I could remember my great-grandpa. And the details of the birds and the apartment that I could recall.

The moral of this story is that when you know, you know.