Watermelon Soup

By: Maddy Meyer

My grandpa is made of laughter. It pours out of him as easily as secrets come out of my brother. When my grandpa laughs, the world laughs with him. 

My grandpa is made of stories. Stories from when he was little, pranks gone wrong and friends lost to time. Stories from when he was a young man, determined to become a religious brother, until he first caught a glimpse of my grandma’s smile. Stories of today, how he lost his phone again and how a Tesla almost ran into him. 

My grandpa is made of fun. My grandpa lets nothing stop him from being a kid. A kidult, he says. A rare occurrence when the body grows up but the heart doesn’t. The moment the eyes stop looking at the world the way a young child does is when all is lost, he often tells me. When the little moments are lost, so too are the bigger ones.  

My grandpa even made Target fun. We had just made it into the store, my hair still sopping wet and dripping onto the pristine, white laminate floors. Grandpa’s hair would have been too, if he still had any. He smiled, one that reached his blue eyes. I was cold, and I didn’t want to be there. (I had made that pretty obvious.)  I wanted to be at the pool party back at my cousin’s house, playing Mermaid with my cousins. 

Kids that make trouble don’t get to play Mermaid, my grandma made clear to me before banishing me to the store. Kids that get into fights with their twin brothers and break chairs have to go to Target and help their grandpas, my parents backed her up. The chair had been an accident, I stated clearly. My parents didn’t seem to believe me. My grandma, the unlucky owner of the chair, didn’t either. My grandpa didn’t seem to mind. Maybe he had seen enough broken chairs throughout his years to not get frustrated with them. 

“We only have to pick up a couple things,” he told me. I couldn’t remember what these couple of things were. My grandma had told me, but I quickly realized it was hard to give someone the stink eye and pay attention to them at the same time. 

“We should get ice cream,” I told my grandpa. He eyed me, before leading me down an aisle. I tried again. “We should get helium balloons,” I told my grandpa. An eyebrow shot up. I kept going. “We should get ice cream sandwiches, we should get Lucky Charms, we should get those little umbrella things people put in their drinks…” 

On and on it went. It became a game. Every time we passed something I wanted, I would tell my grandpa we should get it. He would make a funny face, and lead me on. Even when we passed stuff I didn’t want, I would come up with something imaginative and bizarre that I wanted, and tell that to my grandpa too. I was somewhat proud of how many outrageous things my mind could make up. It didn’t seem to upset my grandpa. I think he knew I was playing with him. In fact, I thought I saw a little smile hiding around the other side of his face. 

Finally, we reached the soup aisle. I like to think it was ol’ humanity’s buddy, Fate, who led us there. I can say with almost 100% certainty that we didn’t need soup for our hotdogs-and-hamburgers 4th of July party. But as we made our way through the aisle, I had a brilliant idea. 

“We should get watermelon soup,” I said to my grandpa. He paused; stopped walking. He looked down at me. And then burst out laughing. I laughed with him. I was satisfied with my own creativity, proud that I had made him laugh so hard. 

“What did you say? Watermelon soup?” He wheezed. “Yes!” I wheezed back to him. “We need some!”. After brushing the tears from his eyes, (I was pretty certain he had laughed so hard he cried) we moved on. Every now and then, however, he would stop and look down at me, still holding my hand, and say: “You know what I think we should get? Watermelon soup!”

We made it back to the party successfully. We had gotten all the items we had embarked on this quest for, and came back victorious. I was in a much better mood than when I had left. My grandma noticed. 

“What are you smiling at?” She asked me. I looked at my grandpa, and he quietly chuckled. “Nothing,” I said. 

Sometimes, kids that get into fights with their twin brother and (accidently) break chairs have to leave parties to go do boring chores. Other times, kids that get into fights with their twin brother and break chairs make watermelon soup with their kidult grandpa.