And in the End, I Know Not What to Do
filed on Monday, February 27, 2006 at 7:19:15 PM CST

I guess I've avoided this long enough.  I mean, it's been one month to the day since my grandfather died, and I haven't posted so much as a word about him.  Nothing.  Of course, that's what's filling this big, empty hole in my daily routine right now.  Nothing.  I suppose I thought that I'd get over his passing.  It wasn't really a surprise or a shock.  But instead of getting over it, I just keep reminding myself of it.

It sort of sucks that I don't even know what to say anymore.  It's like, I dunno... I'm just sitting here, writing this, my mind roaming randomly from one thought to the next.  But really, even my brain is having a certain disconnect from what I'm doing right now, almost as if it doesn't want me to write this — doesn't want me to deal with this.  Perhaps it is because dealing with it makes it all real, all final, all over.  And I still, 31 days later, don't want to let go.

I guess maybe it's all the stress that was wrapped up into everything that happened.  I was out of work the last two weeks of my grandpa's life.  And missed a third after he died.  Mostly, it was taking care of grandma, getting what I could of grandpa's personal effects in order, and dealing with family.  My mother, in particular.

But aside all of the "normal" stuff, there was all the stuff I didn't want to have to do.  Stuff that I did anyway, because it had to be done, and no one else was going to do it.  I don't know how I developed the "bravery" aspect of my personality, because I tend to avoid heavy, personal situations if I can, but the moment that it becomes clear I've got to do something, I just do it, and then deal with the aftermath.

I never wanted to be the one to determine if my grandfather lived or died.  It really shouldn't have fallen to me anyway, except, of course, that I was living with him.  When my mother asked me to call the doctor back and tell her not to do anything extraordinary to keep him alive, I got snitty, "thanking" her for leaving the job to me.  Her husband realized I didn't want to make the call, and my mom took care of it for me, and thanked me, and I fell to the floor in a heap of tears, leaning against my dresser, thankful that decision wasn't mine anymore.

When my mom came down to say goodbye to her father, from what I had gathered, she'd signed a DNR for my grandfather.  I was still broken about my grandfather's condition, but I wasn't stressed out about that decision anymore.  Well, my grandfather spent a week in the hospital until the point in time that they could do no more for him, and then he was transfered to a nearby nursing home for "comfort care," to live the last week of his life.

Well, it fell to me to visit the nursing home and take care of all of the paperwork for admitting my grandfather.  I get there, and a very nice woman whose name I'll probably never remember is sitting there with all of the paperwork, and has a bazillion questions for me, but she's very helpful and nice, and I was sure Grandpa was in the best hands he could be in for his final days.  And there, sitting in front of me, waiting for my signature, was a DNR.  It turns out no one had ever signed one in the hospital.  My mind blanked, and I dropped into "android mode."  That piece of paper would get my signature on it, no matter what my personal, emotional reasoning told me to do.

Before I signed it though, the woman wanted us to go see my grandfather.  She hadn't seen him yet, and wasn't sure if he was capable of expressing his own desires.  Well, we get back to the room, and there, sitting with my grandfather, is Father Michael Anderson.  Father Anderson had been the rector at the Church of the Holy Nativity for several years, and had worked closely with my grandfather that entire time.  It was so good to see him there.  My grandfather wasn't able to do much by the way of talking, but I was glad to see the two of them there.

And then, when the woman asked my grandfather if he recognized me, he looked up at me, and said he hadn't a clue.  There was that look in his eyes... the one you get from someone when you've mistaken them for someone else, and they haven't a bloody clue who the hell you are.  It was right there, staring back at me, right in the eyes of my own grandfather.  Even Father Anderson seemed a bit shocked, and the woman told me I could sign.  I left the room to take care of that last bit of paperwork, and then I went back to be with my grandfather and Father Anderson.

It wasn't long before Father Anderson had to go, but before he left, my grandfather, Father Anderson, and I all had a short prayer, a prayer that my grandfather requested.  I think, in the end, his faith was the only thing he had left.  Mostly because as I took his hand to join in the prayer, he said, "Watch it, careful," and almost pulled his hand away, jerking it away much like any one of us might do if a stranger took our hand unexpectedly.

After the prayer, Father Anderson left, and I sat with my grandfather, watching as he drifted in and out of sleep.  He mistook me for his doctor once, asked me to do something about his legs once, but for the most part, I'm pretty sure he didn't even know I was in the room.  I finally had to get up and leave, and I couldn't even bring myself to say goodbye.  I guess, at that moment, my mind decided I'd said goodbye to him when he and I had held hands in the hospital and he told me that he loved me.  The man laying in the bed was only a shell, barely holding onto life, and certainly devoid of any knowledge of who I was.

That was the last time I saw him.  A few days later, I got to deal with all kinds of "fun" stuff.  My grandmother called me in a near panic that Friday night (I had gone to work to get my check and eat lunch with a couple of co-workers, and then went to the store to do some shopping for stuff we needed at home), telling me I needed to get home so I could take her to the funeral home to sign some papers.  That was all she told me.  Well, I figured that meant Grandpa had finally passed away, and called my mom (though only got to speak with David, her husband) to prepare her; I said I'd call back when I knew more.

I get home, and I ask when it had happened.  Grandma tells me she doesn't know.  So I then ask how she's sure he's gone, to which she replies that Father Parker (the current rector of Holy Nativity) told her he was taking his last breaths when he'd visited him.  Resigned that I might not yet know all that's going on, I left for the funeral home to get the papers my grandma said she needed to sign, and called Michigan (where my mom lives) again to let them know I wasn't sure if grandpa was gone yet.

When I get home, the funeral home closed, grandma's on about how he was dead now, and that the nursing home had just called while I was out and asked if she wanted to go say goodbye.  She didn't.  Me, I couldn't blame her.  I didn't want to remember my grandfather the way he was in the nursing home, and yet, here today, mixed in with all of the good thoughts I have about him, I can't help but remember the last time I saw him, and I wish that I could just take a Brillo pad and permanently damage that portion of my brain beyond recollection and beyond repair.  I'd love to have my mother's ability to just blank out huge chunks of my life right now, but, I don't, and so it remains.

Well, grandma starts wanting to call everyone to tell them he's dead, while I'm still wondering if it really has happened yet.  So we call my Uncle Charles, and we call my mom, and I explain to my mom as best I can with my Grandmother in earshot that I don't know if it's true, and that I'll call in the morning to find out since I needed to visit the funeral home in the morning anyway.  After that, I sat down in my bedroom, and sat down to play World of Warcraft with some of my co-workers.  Then the phone rings.  It's Doctor Jones.  And this time, I'm 100% certain that my grandfather, at 9:20 PM, January 27, 2006, passed away.

I got to be the one to call the funeral home's answering service, and to speak with the funeral director about transporting my grandfather to the crematorium.  The following morning, it was me who got the paperwork for my grandmother to sign, and my signature that lays all over sheets upon sheets of paper witnessing this, agreeing to that, and authorizing the other.

Father Parker became quite an indispensable help, visiting a couple of times to make sure the memorial service was all in order.  Bishop Scantleburry would be performing the service, and I thought that it was quite an honor to have a Bishop do that.  Through it all, I settled into the role of handling grandma's finances, making sure the bills got paid, diving into bags upon bags and mounds upon mounds of mail, sorting the junk from the stuff we should keep.  I think that I was so overwhelmed with stuff to do probably kept me sane.  And in the hours that I wasn't busy, I hopped onto the computer and fled to a fantasy world.

Hell, who'm I kidding?  I was in a shambles for the better part of a week and a half.  Wednesday the 25th, I'd been up so late going through grandpa's stuff (we were already trying to get stuff in order before he passed away) and then losing myself in Warcraft, that I didn't fall asleep until about 10:30 am on the 26th.  When I woke up at about 8:15 pm later that day, it was the last time my eyes would see sleep until Saturday afternoon at about 3:30 pm.  Over 42 hours straight.  And I slept for about five hours.  From there on out through to my grandfather's memorial service, me and sleep weren't good friends.  If I was lucky, I slept for 4 out of every 36 hours.  No, it probably wasn't healthy, but then, I didn't want to sleep, because if I slept, I might dream, and if I dreamt, I might remember.

My brother, Lenny, came up to be with me for the service, and my sister, Veronica, came down with my mom and her husband, bringing my nephew, Grant, along with.  It was such a strange day.  My grandmother wasn't doing so well, introducing people to each other several times, and then introduced me to my sister.  And my brother to someone as my friend.  The service though was quite nice.

Father Parker had asked me if I wanted to say something at the service, or write something if I felt I couldn't speak.  I knew for certain I'd never make it through, but I told him I'd write something for him.  I agonized Wednesday and Thursday (the service was on Friday, a week after grandpa had died) trying to get it just right, trying to do my grandfather justice, and while there is so much more that I could have written, I finally got to someplace I was happy with, and emailed it to Father Parker.  When he wrote back telling me how wonderful a tribute it was, and asking if he could read it at the service, I knew I'd hit the mark.

Of course, even I couldn't have been prepared for how well I'd gotten it.  At the appropriate juncture in the service (for those of you who've never been to an Episcopal service, it's not a joke that Episcopals are "Catholic-Lite" — the services go one for ages), Father Parker got up, and before sharing his own thoughts, read what I had written.  I think I made it through the first paragraph before I couldn't stop balling, but what really struck me harder was that I kept hearing sniffles from all over the congregation.

After the service was over and we were all gathered informally in the vestibule, everyone that came up to shake my hand told me how well I'd done with what I'd written.  In fact, a couple of people went further, one woman conveying it best.  "You know, I think we all hope that when our time comes, our grandchildren will have as much good to say about us as you did about your grandfather."

I got to see people I hadn't seen since my early teens, and family friends I've probably neglected far too much over the years, but the best, the absolute best was being with my brother, my sister, and my nephew.  Now, this particular pairing of brother and sister happens to be my half-brother from my father and my half-sister from my mother, which is to say, they're not related except through me.  However, I think it's fair to say that they hit it off pretty well (though, I still think letting them compare notes in Len's car on the way to dinner was probably a bad idea on my part, *grin*).

We went out that evening to go bowling, the four of us, because my sister was headed back to Michigan in the morning.  We had an absolute blast!  It was also then that I had a strange, mind-shattering thought that I'll detail later, as it's sort of inappropriate for this whole particular discussion.  Still, I had an awesome time, and we were all as goofy as could be.  Grant, particularly.  We had to tickle him mercilessly at times, and I got such a kick out of his reactions when he managed to get a strike (in fact, the little booger beat us the third game!).

Well, my brother and I got to hang out Saturday night, and then he too had to head home.  And there I was, stuck in a house with my grandmother.  And my mom.

My mom... she drove me nuts.  I mean, I'm glad she was there to help start going through things, though I think she spent more time shopping and running around with my grandma and uncle to take care of various things than she did actually "helping" with anything, particularly since she left the corner of the living room cluttered after promising it, at least, would be clean before she left (mind you, she cluttered it up into a condition worse than I'd already straightened into).  But worse, she kept trying to be my grandfather.

In my eulogy, I told of a particular habit my grandfather had of warning me each day (probably just about every time I left the house) not to run over too many people.  So, every time I was about to leave, my mom would call out, "Don't run over too many people on the way."  I wanted to vomit every time she said it.  It only served to remind me that he was gone, that he would never say it again.  And she's definitely no substitute.  Particularly since she's often told jokes in obverse order — punchline first.

Well, she stayed a week, and is now gone.  It's just me and grandma.  I'm back at work.  And helping out grandma as best I can.  I worry about her sometimes, because she says and does stuff that isn't exactly coherent, but then, she's pretty coherent most of the time, so I try not worry too much.

And every day I leave the house, and every night I come home, I feel an emptiness when grandpa's not there to talk to.  I'm doing the usual self-depricating guilt trip of beating myself up mentally for not having spent more time with him when he was alive, though, I'm not sure how in the world it would have been possible to both do that and continue to live a normal life.  I mean, yeah, there's the logical part of me that's doing a lousy job of soothing the emotional part, reminding me that I really was a help to him, and that I really did spend far more time with him than most would expect, and that I'm really just missing him... but the emotional part of me's a big crybaby, and won't let go to something to guilt myself with.

And now, as of today, I'm already set up for the next round.  My grandmother and I visited her lawyer today (who happens to be part of the Holy Nativity parish), and took care of setting up a trust, her will, and Power of Attorney for both property and health if her faculties should fail her.  You guessed it.  The duty's fallen to me.  Now, if I happen to get run over by a bus, my Uncle has to step up to the plate, but, barring that, it's all on my shoulders again.

You know, I seriously contemplated changing my signature after signing all of my grandfather's papers.  In fact, it's merely that I haven't come up with one that I like that it hasn't happened already.  Because, honestly, that signature has so much negative associated with it right now, I can hardly stand to look at it.

I dunno.

I guess I'll get over it.  They say time heals it all, and even I know that to be true.  But right now, it all really, really sucks.  There's been some moments of happiness, and life's getting back to normal, but that void... that void is still there.

Well, I think this is enough random babbling for now.  Later on, I plan on putting up my eulogy into the "About Me" section, because I think it deserves to be shared.  This, this I just had to get out.  My head's been reeling, and perhaps this will help me sort it into something better.  Only time will tell, of course.

Though, I guess, in closing, the one thing that bothers me the most, the one thing I had absolutely no control over, and the one thing that if I had the power to change, I would, is this:  I wouldn't have wanted him to go the way he did.  I wish, as I've told many people, that he'd have gone peacefully in his sleep.  He didn't, and there's nothing I can do to change that or wipe that last moment I was with him from my mind.  And that, perhaps more than all else, is what haunts me.