Searching for Immortality

“I hate you! You’re nothing but a liar. I’m glad you’re dying.”

“But J3, I never meant—”

“I don’t care,” the boy screamed, reaching for his mother with one hand while wiping away tears with the other.

“He doesn’t mean it, Dad,” John Jr. assured his father. 

“He does mean it, and he’s right,” Jonathan replied, turning back towards the window so his son wouldn’t see him cry. 

Jonathan Farmer never intended to lie to his grandson, but then again, he never expected to move in with his son. He was an unremarkable man who had lived an unremarkable life. A lowly factory worker just like his own father, Jonathan had few accomplishments to his name. He wasn’t sure how he had convinced his beloved Susan to marry him or why God had blessed him with a son with whom he was immensely proud. He just knew his grandson deserved a better grandfather.

So he lied.

“How old are you, Grandpa?”

The question was benign. Jonathan was fifty-nine years old. That’s what he should have said, but he didn’t.

“I’ll be 237 next month.” 

His grandson, Jonathan Farmer III, or J3 to Jonathan, was five years old. Like most five-year-old boys, he took his grandfather at his word. 

“237! Wow, you’re the oldest person in the world.”

“Yep,” Jonathan answered, matching the smile on his grandson’s face.

“But you don’t have any wrinkles,” the boy commented, rubbing his hands over Jonathan's cheeks. “I thought old people were wrinkly.”

“Wrinkles are for mortals,” Jonathan responded, tucking the blankets around the boy and kissing him on the forehead.

“What’s a mortal?”

“It’s someone who’ll die one day.”

“Are you mortal, Grandpa?”

“Of course not. I’m immortal.

“Immortal? Does that mean you will live forever?”

“It does.”

As the words came out of Jonathan’s mouth, he instantly regretted them. This was a lie that would one day become demonstrably untrue. There will be time to set the record straight, he thought to himself before turning his attention to his favorite little man.

“Now go to bed before your mother comes in and you get us both in trouble.”

Jonathan loved his grandson more than his own life, and it pained him to see the bad hand the boy had been dealt. He didn’t want to deceive J3—he just wanted to bring magic into his grandson’s life. As a result, one lie became two, two became four, and four became more.

“I’ve walked on every continent on earth,” Jonathan often bragged before tucking J3 into bed at night.

“How many are there?”

“Seven.”

“What are they like, Grandpa? Which one was your favorite?”

“I don’t know. I never really thought about it. South America, I guess.”

“South America!”

“That’s right. You wouldn’t believe it. In the tropics, everything grows bigger. The blueberries are like apples and the apples are like pumpkins and the little boys…”

“What about the little boys?”

“They are like giants. If you were to go to South America, you would grow ten feet tall.”

“Will you take me there one day, Grandpa?”

“Of course I will.”

“Grandpa, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure. What is it?”

“What does a pumpkin look like?”

The question hit Jonathan like a punch in the gut. How do you describe a pumpkin to a boy born without sight?

“It’s mostly round, like your noggin, but much bigger,” Jonathan answered, rubbing his hands all over J3’s head. “And they have a stem and are bright orange.”

“What does orange look like?” J3 asked.

“Wait right here and I’ll show you.”

Jonathan jumped to his feet and headed to the kitchen, returning less than a minute later before sitting back down next to his grandson’s bed.

“Take this from me,” Jonathan said, placing something in his grandson’s hands.

“What do you feel?”

“It’s small and round and a little rough.”

“Now smell it. What do you smell?”

“It’s an orange. It smells like an orange because it is an orange.”

“That’s what orange looks like to you, J3.”

“It’s beautiful, Grandpa.”

“It sure is,” Jonathan responded, peeling the orange and sharing the fruit with his grandson.

Each night like clockwork, Jonathan sat next to J3’s bed and told stories of places Jonathan had never really been. He tried to find words for the boy to understand sandy beaches—“It’s like walking on hot, powdery snow”—and blue oceans—“It’s cool and wet like dew on a crisp fall morning”—and he told J3 the Egyptian pyramids were like big mounds of cookie dough. He wasn’t sure about that one, but it made both man and boy hungry. Jonathan, a man who had never ventured more than a hundred miles from the town in which he was born, used his imagination and his tall tales to sing his grandson to sleep.

Then in a cruel twist, cancer came for Jonathan like a thief in the night. He’d never smoked a single cigarette, but just like his father before him, the disease ravaged his lungs and sealed his fate.

Lying in bed, struggling for breath, it was finally time to tell his grandson the truth.

“J3, I need to tell you a secret. It might be hard to believe.”

“I’ll believe you, Grandpa.”

“I’m really sick.”

“I don’t understand. You can’t be sick. Only mortals get sick.”

“I know, but it seems I’m mortal after all.”

“But mortals die.”

“I know but…”

“But you promised to take me to South America.”

“I’m so sorry, J3.”

“I hate you! You’re nothing but a liar. I’m glad you’re dying.”

After the boy angrily left the room with his mother, John Jr. knelt by his father's bed and prayed for a miracle both men knew would never come.

“I need you to promise me something,” Jonathan said, taking hold of his son’s hand. 

“Anything, Dad.”

“I need you to make sure J3 gets my eyes.”

“Your eyes? Is that even possible?”

“These days almost anything is possible.”

”I don’t know what to say.”

”Don’t say anything yet because I need one more favor. J3 thinks I’m a liar. He trusted me and I let him down. I need you to keep my promise. I need you to take him to South America.”

”Dad, I don’t know.”

”I know it’s a big ask but, I need you to promise me. Take him there, let him walk on the beaches and swim in the ocean. I know I lied but I just wanted to help him see. It’s all I’ve wanted to do since the day he was born. Will you do that for me?”

“I will, Dad, but you didn’t lie to him. You gave him the world with your stories, and now he’ll see it with your eyes. If that’s not immortality, I don’t know what is.”