I Said I Was Full

What he kept giving me

As a child, I was afraid of my grandfather and carried difficult feelings about him. As he grew older, though, I began to notice a different way he reached toward me. He would offer me a soy drink without making much of it.

When he could move easily, he placed it beside me. Later he held it out for me to take. When moving became harder, he pointed to the box. The gesture changed with his body, but he kept making it.

What I did with it

I usually said I had already eaten, or that I was full. I felt guilty accepting another thing when I had so little to give him in return. The truth was that I wanted the drink. Once I got into my car, I would drink it almost immediately.

On the last occasion I remember, I took one from the box and turned back to see a faint smile on his face. I did not yet know how much that moment would stay with me.

Why the lyrics leave room

The song does not name every part of our difficult history. Nor does it claim that I knew what each gesture meant at the time.

I wanted a listener to recognize a familiar contradiction: saying we do not need something while accepting the care inside it.

What I understand now

I once expected love to sound like a particular kind of sentence. My grandfather’s love, at least in this memory, arrived as something small he placed in my hand.

I said I was full. I carried it away anyway.