Roaring his last
When I heard he had a stroke, I went to the hospital as soon as I could. I saw him there, in the bed, laying up. He looked at me with those blank eyes. He had lost control of half his face..
"Harry?" I said to him, and he continued to stare. I walked into the room. "Harry, do you remember me? It's Jim."
He moved around, as if trying to say something, or gesture. But he couldn't.
I took his hand
"Harry. If you know who I am. Squeeze my hand," I said. And I felt my brother's fingers wrap around mine. He stared at me, his mouth moved as if he was trying to speak. But all he could do was squeeze my hand.
--James Gilbert, recalling his brother's stroke.
As a child, I never had a closeness with my grandfather. It wasn't that he misstreated me, or that we disliked each other. It was simply that we weren't close. He always seemed to have a coldness around me, and I the same for him. I always felt closer to my grandmother. The one memory that I can recall of us actually doing something, was we played a game of war with each other, a card game. I suppose we might have been two different people. I was rambunctious, and a dreamer, and a whiney sort of child. He was a do-it-yourselfer, who loved to get his hands dirty.
I remember alot about him now. Things I had forgotten. He loved to do word searches, and giant jigsaw puzzles. He went to the YMCA every day to go swimming. The once heavyset man lost 90 pounds on diet and excerise, and quit smoking cold turkey in a day. But most of all, he loved building things with his hands.
It wasn't till I was in high school that we actually started to bond. My Aunt Theresa's fence had been knocked down by their horse, and he, in his seventies, wanted to go and fix it by himself. In the hot summer sun, he went up there. After a few days, I was recrutied to help him out. At first, I saw it as a huge burden. I didn't want to go, and certainly didn't want to spend time with him. For the first few days, we didn't talk alot, but as the days progressed, we chatted a bit. About his time in the war, about things in the past. We picked up bottles from the 1920s we found in her yard, cleaned them up and brought them back to thier house. We ate cheese steaks or hogies every day as we worked on that long fence. I wouldn't say that I saw him as a traditional grandfather, but I came to know him as a good friend, something I never had seen him as before.
It was right after his 75th birthday that it started. He'd go out shopping, and then wouldn't come till the night time. My grandmother had no idea where he was going. None of us did. It was soon after that his doctor diagnosed him with Alziemhers.
It wasn't so bad at first. He'd forget things. The word search from the paper that came every day would be blank. His Jigsaw table migrated it's way down into the basement. He stopped going to the YMCA. However, things didn't go down hill till after a surgery to clean out veins in his neck. They were 94% blocked, and if he were not on blood thinners, he would have suffered a stroke. I saw him after the surgery though, and he told me the story of how his brother Harry had a stroke, and the day he went to see him. He held my hand as he told me.
After the surgery, the dimensia kicked in, like a brick. He started saying he saw a body under his bed, that the nurses weren't feeding him, and he even punched out an orderly.
He lost his license, something which hit him hard. He had been a driver for the paper for 30 years. And he watched as they took his grey chevy nova away with grief in his eyes. He would sit in his chair, and watch old movies as loud as the TV would let him. My grandmother treated him like an ailing person, like he would get better. She gave him whatever he wanted. But slowly it ate away at her insides. A diabetic for a good portion of her life, she didn't regulate herself, and slowly her eyesight deteriated. And he started the famous monogram "Oh Henri!", calling out my grandmother's name, at all times and places.
My mother traveled to thier house every day, doing thier bills and bringing them food. But all he could do was reminisce about the past, talk in circles, drink pepsi, and watch old movies. This was about the time that I started college, and I lost track of things that were going on at home, and blame myself alot for it. He couldn't be trusted to remember anything,a dn it was very early on that I suggested that a retirment home might be better for him, after seeing after only two years, what had happened to him.
I watched my blind grandmother try to tend to him, and saw her getting older and older. She wouldn't get a shower for days on end due to worry. I still wish I had talked to her more during this time, blaming myself that there could have been more done.
Soon enough though, it was time. My mother couldn't go there every day any longer, and thusly, we decided that it was time to move them in with us. However, to my grandmother, everything had to be perfect. After the addition was built to thier specs, we still had to find the correct carpeting, the correct paint colors. The correct everything. We moved in both of thier king sized beds. We had a bathroom downstairs so they wouldn't have to try stairs. But things went downhill further.
We had beer in the fridge from a party earlier in the year, and one night my mother caught him drinking it, and then complaining he didn't feel well. He'd guzzle pepsi, tea, or any other sweet drink like it was wine, and when nothing was in the house, he'd pester us all to the point of madness. He'd constantly talk about moving back to the old house to clear it out himself like he did for my great uncle tony's place so many years ago, and whenever he was angry, he'd wonder off into his room, and say he wanted to move back to Ardsley road.
Every time you thought things couldn't get worse, they did. Three weeks ago, he was at the point that he did not know where he was at ever, asking every ten minutes. He slept during the day and was up at night, wondering around and marveling at wonders such as the doors. He kept my mother and grandmother up for hours, and they haven't gotten a decent nights sleep in a long time. He couldn't breath (and he reminded that to us every few minutes), having constantly the need to wear his oxygen mask. A constant want of food and sweets had ballooned him up to 230lbs, and he had become a diabetic.
Watching him, and what he was doing to my grandmother bothered me. I started to look on him as a thing more than a person. An object of resentment, and he could clearly see such was the case. We'd have bouts every once and a while, were something I said set him off. Something I did made him angry. And I was constantly told to take a Lezee-fair attitude reguarding it.
To be honest and truthful, I've spent my past three weeks in a daze. Three weeks ago, my great aunt Dorthy died, one of his sisters. We didn't tell him. But mom asked me to come with her to the funeral, and I did. I saw many people I had never seen as far as I could remember in my life, saying they hadn't seen me since I was in diapers, and more than that said that to my mom. They asked about him, and mom said he was doing "alright", and would explain and re-explain things.
Being there, however, took it's toll. I didn't show it, and honestly it didn't upset me. It was enlightening how such a gathering took place. People weren't just weaping as they show in other funerals, but people were laughing, remenisicing, and overall being cheery. Aunt Dot looked so at peace in her coffin. The service was nice, but the normality of it all, the way it was depicted as a day to day event, for such a large group, frightened me.
I've always thought about death in the back of my mind. What comes after death, what happens after you die. Significance, and most importantly, I've always know that some day, everything will die. But on that day, a few things hit home. I was going to burry my mother, my grandmother, and many people I love today. My grandparents and my mother want to be cremated, however I don't. I don't know what I want to do, but I don't want to be burried alone. thoughts of my blood being drained out and replaced with fermaldihide and sawdust sent unnatural shivers down my spine. That day, my mother and I discussed what we wanted at our funerals, and what we wanted as last wishes. But I suppose the idea of death, dying, being burried and forgotten frightened me. But I didn't show it.
Over the course of the past three weeks, I've dove into distractions. Videogames, card games, anything to get my mind off of such thoughts. I'd go to work like a zombie, simply moving from one thing to the next with whatever came my way. I'd do what I was told, and forget about it. nothing stuck.
When I'd get home, I'd play something or other till my eyes bled in the wee hours of the morning, then spend the whole next day thinking of it. I'd come home, eat dinner, then go upstairs and play something. Such was life.
Two weeks ago, he started something strange. His eyes would close, and he'd be dreaming in a sense, but still awake and talking. He just seemed so tired. Upon a visit with his doctor, he suggested that he be immediately taken to the hospital. We were told he had congestive heart failure, and he didn't have much time left. He had agreed to a DNR and did not want to be kept alive by extraordinary measures, as his brother was. My mother has been going back and fourth from the hospital every day.
Over the past week he became so weak that he couldn't even feed himself, and mom and gram would go there and help him drink the vitamin shakes they gave him.
During this time, for me, life remained in a daze. I went on with life as nesseciary. He had spent so much time in a confused state, that, I felt it was better if he passed on. I didn't really think that, when I reflect on it. I thoght that he'd get better, and probably end up in a retirement home. But as the enevitable came around, mom said that I should see him one more time, and so we went.
He still lay there in the bed, his eyes fluttering. He was asleep but awake, and could only manage small words. They had restrained him, as he tried to get out of bed several times. His oxygen mask was on. It was chilling, but I still felt neutral to it all. I watched my mother feed him, putting the straw in the shake and putting it into his mouth. During this, I wondered the futility, why was she doing this? I couldn't make sense of any of it.
Till Gram held his hand. She said to him "Jim, if you an hear me, squeeze my hand".
And it all came to me. Everything. My eyes started to water, and all the contempt, the anger I felt turned in a heartbeat to sadness and guilt. He didn't want to go out like his brother Harry, but he bearly had the energy to breath. "Help me breath" he said weakly "Let me loose. I want to go home." Most of his sentences were half spoken, so lost of energy he was.
And as I watched my mother feed him, it occured to me how much she loved him. The past seven years don't account for the 75 before it. And my heart sank.
I held his hand, and squeezed it. He didn't squeeze back. I couldn't talk as I said goodbye to him for the last time. I told him good bye. I was so lost as to what to say that I told him to get better soon.
Now, one of my regrets is that I don't remember the last time I said that I loved him, and now I never will get the chance again.
As I wrote this, James R. Gilbert passed away at 8:15 pm. I loved him so much. I know wherever he is, he's in a better place, but I wish he knew how sorry I was for not knowing him better, and for treating like something he wasn't for so long.
He was my grandfather.
"Harry?" I said to him, and he continued to stare. I walked into the room. "Harry, do you remember me? It's Jim."
He moved around, as if trying to say something, or gesture. But he couldn't.
I took his hand
"Harry. If you know who I am. Squeeze my hand," I said. And I felt my brother's fingers wrap around mine. He stared at me, his mouth moved as if he was trying to speak. But all he could do was squeeze my hand.
--James Gilbert, recalling his brother's stroke.
As a child, I never had a closeness with my grandfather. It wasn't that he misstreated me, or that we disliked each other. It was simply that we weren't close. He always seemed to have a coldness around me, and I the same for him. I always felt closer to my grandmother. The one memory that I can recall of us actually doing something, was we played a game of war with each other, a card game. I suppose we might have been two different people. I was rambunctious, and a dreamer, and a whiney sort of child. He was a do-it-yourselfer, who loved to get his hands dirty.
I remember alot about him now. Things I had forgotten. He loved to do word searches, and giant jigsaw puzzles. He went to the YMCA every day to go swimming. The once heavyset man lost 90 pounds on diet and excerise, and quit smoking cold turkey in a day. But most of all, he loved building things with his hands.
It wasn't till I was in high school that we actually started to bond. My Aunt Theresa's fence had been knocked down by their horse, and he, in his seventies, wanted to go and fix it by himself. In the hot summer sun, he went up there. After a few days, I was recrutied to help him out. At first, I saw it as a huge burden. I didn't want to go, and certainly didn't want to spend time with him. For the first few days, we didn't talk alot, but as the days progressed, we chatted a bit. About his time in the war, about things in the past. We picked up bottles from the 1920s we found in her yard, cleaned them up and brought them back to thier house. We ate cheese steaks or hogies every day as we worked on that long fence. I wouldn't say that I saw him as a traditional grandfather, but I came to know him as a good friend, something I never had seen him as before.
It was right after his 75th birthday that it started. He'd go out shopping, and then wouldn't come till the night time. My grandmother had no idea where he was going. None of us did. It was soon after that his doctor diagnosed him with Alziemhers.
It wasn't so bad at first. He'd forget things. The word search from the paper that came every day would be blank. His Jigsaw table migrated it's way down into the basement. He stopped going to the YMCA. However, things didn't go down hill till after a surgery to clean out veins in his neck. They were 94% blocked, and if he were not on blood thinners, he would have suffered a stroke. I saw him after the surgery though, and he told me the story of how his brother Harry had a stroke, and the day he went to see him. He held my hand as he told me.
After the surgery, the dimensia kicked in, like a brick. He started saying he saw a body under his bed, that the nurses weren't feeding him, and he even punched out an orderly.
He lost his license, something which hit him hard. He had been a driver for the paper for 30 years. And he watched as they took his grey chevy nova away with grief in his eyes. He would sit in his chair, and watch old movies as loud as the TV would let him. My grandmother treated him like an ailing person, like he would get better. She gave him whatever he wanted. But slowly it ate away at her insides. A diabetic for a good portion of her life, she didn't regulate herself, and slowly her eyesight deteriated. And he started the famous monogram "Oh Henri!", calling out my grandmother's name, at all times and places.
My mother traveled to thier house every day, doing thier bills and bringing them food. But all he could do was reminisce about the past, talk in circles, drink pepsi, and watch old movies. This was about the time that I started college, and I lost track of things that were going on at home, and blame myself alot for it. He couldn't be trusted to remember anything,a dn it was very early on that I suggested that a retirment home might be better for him, after seeing after only two years, what had happened to him.
I watched my blind grandmother try to tend to him, and saw her getting older and older. She wouldn't get a shower for days on end due to worry. I still wish I had talked to her more during this time, blaming myself that there could have been more done.
Soon enough though, it was time. My mother couldn't go there every day any longer, and thusly, we decided that it was time to move them in with us. However, to my grandmother, everything had to be perfect. After the addition was built to thier specs, we still had to find the correct carpeting, the correct paint colors. The correct everything. We moved in both of thier king sized beds. We had a bathroom downstairs so they wouldn't have to try stairs. But things went downhill further.
We had beer in the fridge from a party earlier in the year, and one night my mother caught him drinking it, and then complaining he didn't feel well. He'd guzzle pepsi, tea, or any other sweet drink like it was wine, and when nothing was in the house, he'd pester us all to the point of madness. He'd constantly talk about moving back to the old house to clear it out himself like he did for my great uncle tony's place so many years ago, and whenever he was angry, he'd wonder off into his room, and say he wanted to move back to Ardsley road.
Every time you thought things couldn't get worse, they did. Three weeks ago, he was at the point that he did not know where he was at ever, asking every ten minutes. He slept during the day and was up at night, wondering around and marveling at wonders such as the doors. He kept my mother and grandmother up for hours, and they haven't gotten a decent nights sleep in a long time. He couldn't breath (and he reminded that to us every few minutes), having constantly the need to wear his oxygen mask. A constant want of food and sweets had ballooned him up to 230lbs, and he had become a diabetic.
Watching him, and what he was doing to my grandmother bothered me. I started to look on him as a thing more than a person. An object of resentment, and he could clearly see such was the case. We'd have bouts every once and a while, were something I said set him off. Something I did made him angry. And I was constantly told to take a Lezee-fair attitude reguarding it.
To be honest and truthful, I've spent my past three weeks in a daze. Three weeks ago, my great aunt Dorthy died, one of his sisters. We didn't tell him. But mom asked me to come with her to the funeral, and I did. I saw many people I had never seen as far as I could remember in my life, saying they hadn't seen me since I was in diapers, and more than that said that to my mom. They asked about him, and mom said he was doing "alright", and would explain and re-explain things.
Being there, however, took it's toll. I didn't show it, and honestly it didn't upset me. It was enlightening how such a gathering took place. People weren't just weaping as they show in other funerals, but people were laughing, remenisicing, and overall being cheery. Aunt Dot looked so at peace in her coffin. The service was nice, but the normality of it all, the way it was depicted as a day to day event, for such a large group, frightened me.
I've always thought about death in the back of my mind. What comes after death, what happens after you die. Significance, and most importantly, I've always know that some day, everything will die. But on that day, a few things hit home. I was going to burry my mother, my grandmother, and many people I love today. My grandparents and my mother want to be cremated, however I don't. I don't know what I want to do, but I don't want to be burried alone. thoughts of my blood being drained out and replaced with fermaldihide and sawdust sent unnatural shivers down my spine. That day, my mother and I discussed what we wanted at our funerals, and what we wanted as last wishes. But I suppose the idea of death, dying, being burried and forgotten frightened me. But I didn't show it.
Over the course of the past three weeks, I've dove into distractions. Videogames, card games, anything to get my mind off of such thoughts. I'd go to work like a zombie, simply moving from one thing to the next with whatever came my way. I'd do what I was told, and forget about it. nothing stuck.
When I'd get home, I'd play something or other till my eyes bled in the wee hours of the morning, then spend the whole next day thinking of it. I'd come home, eat dinner, then go upstairs and play something. Such was life.
Two weeks ago, he started something strange. His eyes would close, and he'd be dreaming in a sense, but still awake and talking. He just seemed so tired. Upon a visit with his doctor, he suggested that he be immediately taken to the hospital. We were told he had congestive heart failure, and he didn't have much time left. He had agreed to a DNR and did not want to be kept alive by extraordinary measures, as his brother was. My mother has been going back and fourth from the hospital every day.
Over the past week he became so weak that he couldn't even feed himself, and mom and gram would go there and help him drink the vitamin shakes they gave him.
During this time, for me, life remained in a daze. I went on with life as nesseciary. He had spent so much time in a confused state, that, I felt it was better if he passed on. I didn't really think that, when I reflect on it. I thoght that he'd get better, and probably end up in a retirement home. But as the enevitable came around, mom said that I should see him one more time, and so we went.
He still lay there in the bed, his eyes fluttering. He was asleep but awake, and could only manage small words. They had restrained him, as he tried to get out of bed several times. His oxygen mask was on. It was chilling, but I still felt neutral to it all. I watched my mother feed him, putting the straw in the shake and putting it into his mouth. During this, I wondered the futility, why was she doing this? I couldn't make sense of any of it.
Till Gram held his hand. She said to him "Jim, if you an hear me, squeeze my hand".
And it all came to me. Everything. My eyes started to water, and all the contempt, the anger I felt turned in a heartbeat to sadness and guilt. He didn't want to go out like his brother Harry, but he bearly had the energy to breath. "Help me breath" he said weakly "Let me loose. I want to go home." Most of his sentences were half spoken, so lost of energy he was.
And as I watched my mother feed him, it occured to me how much she loved him. The past seven years don't account for the 75 before it. And my heart sank.
I held his hand, and squeezed it. He didn't squeeze back. I couldn't talk as I said goodbye to him for the last time. I told him good bye. I was so lost as to what to say that I told him to get better soon.
Now, one of my regrets is that I don't remember the last time I said that I loved him, and now I never will get the chance again.
As I wrote this, James R. Gilbert passed away at 8:15 pm. I loved him so much. I know wherever he is, he's in a better place, but I wish he knew how sorry I was for not knowing him better, and for treating like something he wasn't for so long.
He was my grandfather.