I just finished reading The Long Goodbye by Meghan O’Rourke, and I feel a sense of peace and aliveness that I haven’t had in a long time. The book was cathartic for me even though I haven’t recently suffered any great loss or sense of grief. Mainly the memoir took me back to when my Grandpa died on August 13, 2002. Which, I just now realized is only 2 days from now. 18 years ago.
I’m not about to sit here and rehash the book or list a bunch of spoilers, but instead touch on what I took away after reading it.
In remembering Grandpa, he was one of those men who lived his life to the fullest, he was in a bowling league and he had coffee and played cards every day with his buddies at the bowling alley and he frequently took his dad and myself along with him. Grannie recently told me stories about how at times if they were hanging out with their friends, they would decide on a whim to pack a bag and drive to Reno in the middle of the night. One time that resulted in his friend’s truck breaking down and Grannie and her friend had to drive there to rescue them. He would take me with him out to the woods to cut fire wood and I would gladly throw it into the truck and happily help him stack it once we got home. We smelled of gas and oil, wood and tree sap. Grandpa was my hero, I suppose. I never thought of him as that, but I don’t know that I ever gave myself permission to feel that way.
Sometime early 2001, Grandpa was diagnosed with lung cancer and had started going through the motions of receiving the typical treatments of chemo and radiation. A few months in, I was at the house the day he complained that he was feeling “funny,” but didn’t know what I was looking for.. He was up and walking around and wasn’t looking sick or anything, just kind of tired from treatment. That night he was taken to the hospital where it was discovered after a few hours the he had had an abdominal aneurysm. He was whisked off by ambulance to a hospital an hour away for emergency surgery. My mom called me in the middle of the night with the news and I didn’t hesitate to pack up my (only a few months old) daughter Shea, and rush an hour to the hospital, arriving just shortly after the ambulance had arrived. Not to say it didn’t matter to me that I couldn’t see him before he was rushed in to surgery, but I really wanted to make sure I was there for when surgery was done and we could talk to the doctor and find out how he was doing. Thankfully he survived the surgery and was able to come home not long after having been admitted. He, of course, had lost a lot of blood, and even accumulated a giant bed sore on his butt cheek that ended up being the bane of his existence…along with the cancer that was slowly deteriorating his body.
Grannie, having finally reached retirement, stayed home most days to care for him, but she quickly realized that she missed working. She missed keeping busy and being around a group of people and she found herself needing help with balancing caring for Grandpa and keeping herself sane and busy. I offered to bring Shea up to the house during the week and we would sit with him, and keep him company. I would talk to the nurses when they came in to check on him and my mom would stop in to change his bandages on the days when the nurses didn’t come in. I quickly filled that position also, since I was around him the most. It didn’t bother me to help him after he’d used the bathroom, or needed a change of clothes. It make me feel good that I could be there for him in ways that he was there for me when I was still a child. Making sure I was fed and clothed and certainly entertained. Shea was great at entertaining him, especially as she was learning to crawl and walk around. Particularly, he found it amusing when she would dance to the whir of the washing machine that was, and still is, located in the family room separate from the dryer, behind the smoke stained louvered doors. Whir, whir, whir it would swoosh the clothes, and she would hold on to end table and squeal with delight while doing her half squats. Some of his coffee buddies, like Carl or Frank would come over to visit and she didn’t hesitate to get in on the action, or in Frank’s case, his watch. She was enamored with that dang thing for some reason. Why that sticks out to me, I don’t know, but it does.
Once his health had declined to the point where we were having trouble getting him to eat, and had a hard time transferring him around the house, Grannie made the decision that move him into a rest home where we had 2 family friends that would help see to his care while he was there. I would visit him frequently, taking Shea with me. The two of them would sip on chocolate milk and we would talk lightheartedly. The one and only time I had ever seen my Grandpa cry was a difficult and confusing time for me. I think he just knew his decline was coming, and I too had to learn to accept that it wouldn’t be long. I hesitated telling anyone that I had walked it the room during such an intimate time, but when I saw him laying there on his side sobbing, I walked up to him and brushed the sparse hair off his forehead and told him it was ok to cry. It was ok to be upset and I was sorry that he was in such pain and frustration.
Pretty much the whole immediate family was there with him during his last moments. Grannie had stood by his side and told him Gene, You can go now…its ok. Go be at peace. I will be ok. You can go. I remember walking up to my dad and bawling against his chest and then excusing myself into the hall to go and stand by Grannie who was sitting in a chair against the wall. My grief didn’t allow me to speak much, I thought I was prepared, but I was in shock and disbelief. How could this tragic result be what we’d all been waiting for? I went back in the room when others came out to stand by Grannie. I didn’t want to leave her alone. My family isn’t the “lovey dovey” type who hugs and kisses and says I love you, so I guess it was only fitting that most only felt comfortable after he had passed to offer consolation. As if he hadn’t just died and could still hear.
Is it weird that we tend to dwell on what the deceased are “missing” out on? We just have a hard time understanding that we’re trying to cope in a world without our loved one’s because it feels unnatural. We’re used to calling them to tell them news, pop over for a visit, or ask for advice or to reminisce about a moment you had shared.
I think of Grandpa often. I have two tattoos commemorating him and still can’t drink a cup of tea without hearing the familiar clanking of his spoon while he stirred in his teaspoon of sugar. I’ve left him gifts of Tootsie Rolls on his grave stone and sat there and offered both quiet and tear felt, sobbing condolences. I miss him every day. I’m sad that he missed the birth of my other two kids, Kalayah and Austin. Shea is now 19, Kalayah nearly 17 and Austin nearly 15 and about to start high school.
I didn’t start this post with the intention to tell his death story, but to talk about how I think I still have moments 18 years later where I feel like I’m still processing my grief. I ran across one of his bowling shirts in my closet the other day and still think that maybe I should try to make something with it. A pillow, maybe?
O’Rourke’s memoir not only made me think about the relationship that I had with Grandpa, but also the relationship that I have with my parents. My mom mostly. We butt heads at times. She’s strong willed and opinionated and isn’t afraid to be snarky if someone pisses her off. We’ve had our moments where things really flared up and then tapered off in that silent kind of way, not really apologizing or saying we forgave one another. I hope that we can come to better terms within our relationship before either of us is left to grieve what could have been. Honestly, I just don’t know how to go about improving that between us, as it takes two.
Taken from The Long Goodbye, I leave you with this quote:
“I will carry this wound forever. It’s not a question of getting over it or healing. No; it’s a question of learning to live with this transformation. For the loss is transformative, in good ways and bad, a tangle of change that cannot be threaded into the usual narrative spools. It is too central for that. It’s not an emergence from the cocoon, but a tree growing around an obstruction.”
Damn Hell Blog 