When they knew his time was limited, Grandma took Granddaddy on a cross-country tour of sorts. She took a month off of work and drove him from Akron down to Atlanta, then over into Montgomery and back home. He stared a long time at everything, transfixed over the way that the Alabama country he remembered had transformed into bricks and mortar amidst plumes of smoke. He told her that he was reminded in those moments that life would move right on along without him just fine.

The tumor, metastasized from his liver to his brain, poked through his balding scalp and made its shape come to a point on the top. He said he was a dunce after all, and we all laughed. Granddaddy was light in that way.

At his funeral service, she asked tearfully asked Grandma why she wasn’t crying. She answered, “Baby, I been cryin all while yall was laughing.”