(no subject)
It's amazing how much the little decisions can affect things.
My grandmother's 80th birthday is in a little under two weeks. The last time I was up north, Mum gave me the birthday present to hand-deliver - the grandparents live out in Bairnsdale, and the gift was a digital photo frame, so someone had to show 'em how to use it.
My grandfather is quite ill. Multiple myeloma. Hospitalised twice in the last four months for congestive heart failure. Both times, everyone was convinced he wasn't coming out. He did, though. But he left something behind, every time... and he didn't have a whole lot left to start with. Bedridden, unable to eat, unable to walk, so hugely wasted that it took him half an hour to recover from being transferred from his bed to his armchair and back. All in all, not a healthy man.
Last weekend, I finally got around to getting out there to visit and deliver said gift - nearly didn't happen at the last minute, but I got out there; Nan didn't really want me out that weekend coz she was getting her hair permed, and didn't want me to visit just to spend three hours sitting in a salon with her. But she rescheduled it for late sunday after I'd gone back home, so it was all good; if not, I was going to go up this weekend instead.
Got there, and he was even worse than I'd been told. Utterly incapable of independent function, and utterly reliant on my frail, osteoporosis-suffering grandmother to move him from room to room, deal with his bodily functions, etc... but his mind was still there. Took him all of thirty seconds from my arrival to start picking on me for my beard - he always has to rag on me about something. "They gave you a new job with that? What is it, glued on?" And so forth. That special sort of ribbing you get from curmudgeonly old men when they like you.
...you all know where this is going, right?
I just got a call from Mum. He died 8pm tonight. If I had dragged my feet a little more, I'd be there now. If I'd dragged them any more than that, I'd never have gotten a chance to say goodbye.
Funeral is next monday. My other grandfather passed away about six years back; I remember being praised at the time for being strong, for holding the family together. I dunno if I'm up for it this time... I guess time will tell.
But hey. On the plus side, where ever he's gone, he won't be walking... because as he always said, "I did enough bloody walking in the army."
My grandmother's 80th birthday is in a little under two weeks. The last time I was up north, Mum gave me the birthday present to hand-deliver - the grandparents live out in Bairnsdale, and the gift was a digital photo frame, so someone had to show 'em how to use it.
My grandfather is quite ill. Multiple myeloma. Hospitalised twice in the last four months for congestive heart failure. Both times, everyone was convinced he wasn't coming out. He did, though. But he left something behind, every time... and he didn't have a whole lot left to start with. Bedridden, unable to eat, unable to walk, so hugely wasted that it took him half an hour to recover from being transferred from his bed to his armchair and back. All in all, not a healthy man.
Last weekend, I finally got around to getting out there to visit and deliver said gift - nearly didn't happen at the last minute, but I got out there; Nan didn't really want me out that weekend coz she was getting her hair permed, and didn't want me to visit just to spend three hours sitting in a salon with her. But she rescheduled it for late sunday after I'd gone back home, so it was all good; if not, I was going to go up this weekend instead.
Got there, and he was even worse than I'd been told. Utterly incapable of independent function, and utterly reliant on my frail, osteoporosis-suffering grandmother to move him from room to room, deal with his bodily functions, etc... but his mind was still there. Took him all of thirty seconds from my arrival to start picking on me for my beard - he always has to rag on me about something. "They gave you a new job with that? What is it, glued on?" And so forth. That special sort of ribbing you get from curmudgeonly old men when they like you.
...you all know where this is going, right?
I just got a call from Mum. He died 8pm tonight. If I had dragged my feet a little more, I'd be there now. If I'd dragged them any more than that, I'd never have gotten a chance to say goodbye.
Funeral is next monday. My other grandfather passed away about six years back; I remember being praised at the time for being strong, for holding the family together. I dunno if I'm up for it this time... I guess time will tell.
But hey. On the plus side, where ever he's gone, he won't be walking... because as he always said, "I did enough bloody walking in the army."