Orange Peel Candy
Orange Peel CandyThe hospital room where my Spanish grandfather was on his death bed was quiet and gloomy with only a soft, low light. At sixteen I still was not ready to be comfortable with this situation of having loved one to leave. Grand Papa was unaware of my presence or, for that matter, neither did he seem to know of his daughter being beside his bed.
Auntie was weeping quietly. Her long black hair curled and fell over her face so that I could not see her cry and she seemed not to want to disturb anyone either, so I did not make any sound to interrupt. Instead, a notebook from my purse served to occupy my loneliness. Even as a child, sketching was just a part of my life. My grandfather on the bed was barely visible as far as my being able to identify him in a drawing. His coal black hair was all there was to tell something about him while his daughter grieved for him.
The sketch was first made of the white painted, iron, hospital bed. Crumpled sheets pulled up to his chin and my auntâ??s figure standing with her hands over her face while she cried came next. At the end of the bed I penciled in the shape of an angel with wings covering the end of the bed.
My leaving the notebook on the dining room table that seemed to catch all such items was not purposeful. Probably, my sixteen years of age left me a bit careless. The next day my aunt showed it to me and asked.
â??Did you do this sketch?â?
â??Yes, I did. I felt so sad and it seemed to me there was an angel there with us.â?
My aunt made no comment but quietly did tear the page from the notebook and kept it.
Probably fifty years later Mother and I were clearing her things out after she had passed away. Stuck down in between a small stash of papers was the drawing. She had kept it for all those years. Somehow or another, I was not sad. There seemed to be a comfort to having found it and to know it had meant so much to her.
My Spanish grandfatherâ??s cooked Orange Peel Candy this way:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1719,128191-242194,00.html