The Red Flannel Rag

told the family she was ready to die. Of co urse, we didn’t listen and put her in a hospital

for intravenous feeding. She was constantly trying to escape so she could go home to die.

She fell in one of her escape attempts and cracked her hip. One icy night in March I

visited her for the last time. When I walked into the room, she got very agitated and

asked why we did not let her die. She said she was tired and wanted to go. I

acknowledged that she must be tired after eighty-six years of hard work. Perhaps that

acknowledgement was the permission she needed. The next morning, she was dead.

Grandpa Austin was a large man. He had a full head of snow-white hair and icy

blue eyes. He had bushy eyebrows that sagged over heavy eyelids that seemed to

partially block his vision. When I was a child, I thought his eyes looked like that because

he was always mad about something. Now, as I have aged, I recognize the heavy eyelids

as a Shifflett trait and perhaps Grandpa was not always frowning. It is a shame no one

told his grandchildren it was okay to interact with him. We were all scared of him.

Some of his habits didn’t help his grandfather role. When we arrived at his house, he

took out his pocketknife, opened the blade, and pretended to slit our throats. In the

summer, if we got close enough to him, he spit on our bare toes. I now think he was

playing with us the only way he knew how. I never touched him or sat on his lap.

I inherited Grandpa’s white hair and blue eyes. Unfortunately, I also inherited

his heavy eyelids. I have considered having my eyelids removed by a plastic surgeon

because many times people have asked me if I was in a bad mood when I was really in a

good mood.

Grandpa always wore charcoal gray cotton trousers with a tiny herringbone

weave held up by suspenders. His shirts were sometimes smooth cotton and sometimes

flannel, but always long sleeved no matter what the season. You could tell he had

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