Chris

### I'm going to take advantage of this period of lucidity to tell you of a battle won . Through the hands of my beautiful Sara, now in high school , my words are finding their way to paper .
### When I was a younger man , I had a small woodworking shop in the basement . Tinkering with wood, listening to the radio and smoking my pipe , were the rituals I practiced to wander into my own mind . Possibly , the prime reason for basement dwelling was to smoke my pipe , a banned activity in the upper parts of the house . A law that was put in place while my beloved wife was alive , and had never been repealed . I sometimes had trouble remembering her face, but not her rules .
### The grandchildren would often join me in my shop and suffer through my stories and smoke ,while I fabricated a simple toy for them as a reward for their time spent with me . Spears of guilt and regret occasionally stab at me , reminding me that I risked their health because of my smoking addiction .
### I have been blessed with quite a few grandchildren . Through the 20 years or so that I was in the toy making business , I've built enough furniture to fill many doll houses . So many rubber band guns, I could outfit a small army . Cups and balls, rocking horses, a toy chest or two , and once, by request, a pair of wooden shoes for a school presentation about Holland .
### Sara, the youngest of the grandchildren, shared her Granny's distain for my smoking . By the time she came along, I couldn't always remember where I set my tobacco . We would look for it together, with her often commenting that she hoped we wouldn't find it . She was somewhere in the age range of 4 feet tall , when she requested a project that was quite surprising to me . In a small and squeaky voice , "Poppy, you always keep your 'bacco in a plastic bag. Let's make a box to keep it in . A small one you can keep in your pocket so you'll know where it is . "
### The "box", as we've called it since the beginning, had to be of simple design for two reasons . The first reason , was that my time with the children was limited by my increasingly rapid fatigue. The second reason being that I was no longer permitted to use table saws or routers or any tool that was deemed unsafe by my doctor or my children . I could use hand saws, planers , sandpaper, a drill and various hand tools like hammers , clamps and screwdrivers . The design was simple , a rounded , rectangular shape with a pivoting lid that could slide over to cover the cavity where my 'bacco would live . I found an old scrap of wood that was already the proper size . Sara helped me file and sand the corners . I sawed about a quarter of an inch off of the top that would become the lid . The lid section was cut on a diagonal line , so half of the top would be fixed in place while the other half would move on it's pivot , creating a good closure fit for the two piece top . With Sara's help, we screwed both lid pieces in place and glued one of the halves . She painted the wood stain on the box, all by herself . I told her that all we had to do now is wait for it to dry . I promised her I wouldn't use it until her next visit .
### When next she came, we went downstairs to put our project to use . Together, we discovered that there was an error in our design . The lid worked perfectly to cover a compartment that had not been hollowed out ! "Sara, it looks like I goofed up. There's no place in this box for me to keep any 'bacco ! " Her face beamed with pride and glee . Grinning from ear to ear , she looked at me with those big, brown eyes and said, " It's OK Poppy, I think it's better that way ."
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A footnote from myself, Sara.######
We built the box when I was 10 years old . After the box was built, I don't remember ever seeing Poppy smoke again. He did, however, carry the box with him at all times . I wrote the story, as he told it to me from an assisted living facility, when I was 16 . As a reward for my secretarial service, he gave the box to me . Poppy passed away at the age of 74, when I was 17 years old . The box project took place about the time he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease . Now in my 30's, I carry the box with me in my purse .