Death and Habits
My original plan was to post a "good news everyone!" entry after my previous post. However, one major even has popped up, and that is the death of my grandfather.
Poppy was having some troubles after getting out of the hospital. He was having trouble doing day to day tasks, and he couldn't do his daily chores and projects like could before. Then, one night, he was unresponsive. Like he was going into a deep sleep. Grammy called an ambulance and kept Poppy up, making sure that he didn't completely fade away. He was swept away to the hospital where he was cared for immediately.
They still have yet to figure out what was causing the fading, but one mystery has been solved. One of the reasons why he was having trouble breathing (aside from those years of smoking and working as a carpenter catching up with him) was that his throat and tongue were too weak to swallow into his stomach and he was swallowing into his lungs, thus contracting pneumonia. So, he needed to get stronger. However, there was a bit of a catch 22 with that. In order to get stronger, he had to eat food. But he couldn't swallow properly, so he had to get his throat stronger by...you can see where this is going. So did the doctors, so the hooked him up to some tubes. They went through his nose at first, but he kept on knocking the tube out. So they cut out the middle man by going straight to the source and putting a tube to his stomach. For a few days it looked like he was on the mend, but then he was unresponsive again, this time at the hospital.
April 15, 2010. That day, I got up and went to work as usual, planning on going to visit Poppy when I got done with work. Going up to his room, I noticed that the door was closed. Approaching is slowly, I knocked on it, causing it to open slowly. Immediately something was wrong. The people who were visiting I didn't recognize. Then I saw it. The man in the bed wasn't Poppy. "Oh, sorry. Wrong room." I lied. I went into another room to make a call. My mind was already buzzing at the possibility.
"Hey Annika. Did you know where they moved Poppy?"
"Oh. Mom didn't tell you?"
I saw this coming a mile away, but I still wanted to hear it just to make sure that I wasn't assuming things. "No, she didn't. What happened?"
"Poppy died this morning."
"Oh."
In a bit of a stupor, I walked back to the car and went off to see Grammy to see how she was doing. On the way back, I saw kids playing in the park and folks hanging out on their front porch. My first thought was, "How can you do that? A person just died and you carry on like you don't know?! Well, okay. They don't know. They never knew Poppy. Besides, I'm sure he wouldn't want me to mope around and feel sorry for him." Grammy shared in this thought process. When I visited with her, she was still herself, laughing every once in a while, though it seemed that she was a bit more tired. Still, it was comforting to see her laugh.
It's been close to a week now, and although Poppy has passed on, my habits havn't. For one, when I pull into the driveway, I look up expecting to see him sitting by the window glancing out to see who pulled in. Or when I was rooting around in the garage, I almost went upstairs to ask Poppy where a certain tool was. Or when the door opens, I expect him to give his customary greeting to the dog.
Like everything else in life, it usually takes me awhile to adjust to something. As it is with Poppy's death, it's taking time to sink in that he isn't coming back. Maybe then I'll cry.
Poppy was having some troubles after getting out of the hospital. He was having trouble doing day to day tasks, and he couldn't do his daily chores and projects like could before. Then, one night, he was unresponsive. Like he was going into a deep sleep. Grammy called an ambulance and kept Poppy up, making sure that he didn't completely fade away. He was swept away to the hospital where he was cared for immediately.
They still have yet to figure out what was causing the fading, but one mystery has been solved. One of the reasons why he was having trouble breathing (aside from those years of smoking and working as a carpenter catching up with him) was that his throat and tongue were too weak to swallow into his stomach and he was swallowing into his lungs, thus contracting pneumonia. So, he needed to get stronger. However, there was a bit of a catch 22 with that. In order to get stronger, he had to eat food. But he couldn't swallow properly, so he had to get his throat stronger by...you can see where this is going. So did the doctors, so the hooked him up to some tubes. They went through his nose at first, but he kept on knocking the tube out. So they cut out the middle man by going straight to the source and putting a tube to his stomach. For a few days it looked like he was on the mend, but then he was unresponsive again, this time at the hospital.
April 15, 2010. That day, I got up and went to work as usual, planning on going to visit Poppy when I got done with work. Going up to his room, I noticed that the door was closed. Approaching is slowly, I knocked on it, causing it to open slowly. Immediately something was wrong. The people who were visiting I didn't recognize. Then I saw it. The man in the bed wasn't Poppy. "Oh, sorry. Wrong room." I lied. I went into another room to make a call. My mind was already buzzing at the possibility.
"Hey Annika. Did you know where they moved Poppy?"
"Oh. Mom didn't tell you?"
I saw this coming a mile away, but I still wanted to hear it just to make sure that I wasn't assuming things. "No, she didn't. What happened?"
"Poppy died this morning."
"Oh."
In a bit of a stupor, I walked back to the car and went off to see Grammy to see how she was doing. On the way back, I saw kids playing in the park and folks hanging out on their front porch. My first thought was, "How can you do that? A person just died and you carry on like you don't know?! Well, okay. They don't know. They never knew Poppy. Besides, I'm sure he wouldn't want me to mope around and feel sorry for him." Grammy shared in this thought process. When I visited with her, she was still herself, laughing every once in a while, though it seemed that she was a bit more tired. Still, it was comforting to see her laugh.
It's been close to a week now, and although Poppy has passed on, my habits havn't. For one, when I pull into the driveway, I look up expecting to see him sitting by the window glancing out to see who pulled in. Or when I was rooting around in the garage, I almost went upstairs to ask Poppy where a certain tool was. Or when the door opens, I expect him to give his customary greeting to the dog.
Like everything else in life, it usually takes me awhile to adjust to something. As it is with Poppy's death, it's taking time to sink in that he isn't coming back. Maybe then I'll cry.