My grandpa has become Zeus

"Do you know why there are thunderstorms?...Whenever you hear thunder, it means that the dinosaurs up in the skies are fighting, throwing giant rocks at each other. That's why you hear those loud booming sounds that scare you off."

I didn't know its title. It wasn't from a storybook authored by somebody known for children's stories. But it was indeed my favorite. Yes, my favorite! It was told by my grandfather.

How I fell for the story, that I loved recalling it over and over again. How I got fond of imagining dinos becoming true, waking up, alive and angry at every drop of the loud sounds. Deafening. Earsplitting. But grandpa's story was too amazing for me to be so scared. Instead, I listened and counted, listened and smiled.

One time, it came to my interest to research on how to measure the distance of thunderstorms from the Earth's crust. And bingo! I found the answer in my favorite Grolier Q&A encyclopedia. I simply had to count seconds between thunders. If I'm not mistaken, the most frequent count (mode) would be divided into a number which I couldn't remember (either 3 or 8, I think), then the result would be in kilometers.

Of course, I did further readings on thunderstorms. That made quite a lot of information. Objective. But no scientific fact could replace my grandpa's dreamy fiction in my head. My apologies to the great Sir Benjamin Franklin.

Perhaps because that sweet silly story had settled at a place far safer than my head. Perhaps it went along with its storyteller.

Today, grandpa concluded his lifetime of 'earthy' experience. What could he have said about it? I wonder. I wish he was able to write it down. Doubt that. He would rather write three digits.

That story I love the most, it's not going to die with its storyteller, as the skies won't run out of thunderstorms. That story of the thunderstorm and the dinosaurs, it remains as the lifeline between my childhood and my present, and my childhood and my future. After all, what's so bad with being fixated to my childhood through a sweet silly story?

It's never really so sad. As long as I can hear thunder, I'd know grandpa's never too far, just a few kilometers away from the Earth's crust.

How I'd love to imagine that my grandpa has become Zeus! It's crazy. But isn't it cute? (*big smile*)

To my favorite storyteller, bon voyage, happy old man!

photo: clipartpal