Live, Die, Curse, Pray
I hold her hand gently, the loose skin feeling fragile and paper-thin under my fingertips.
“How could I have made JD live like this?” she sobs. “How could I have made him live, suffering like this?”
I try to keep the sound of my own tears from my voice, even as they fall to the bed below. “All we can do is our best, Grandma. All we can do is try and do our best.”
It was early January, 2008, when my paternal grandfather entered the hospital for the last time. The prostate cancer he had once beat into remission had returned and spread, and the tumors that had eventually found their way to his spine left him in constant pain. He came down with pneumonia again - his old lung problems, dating back to his days in the WWII Air Force, made him more susceptible - and his body was simply unable to fight off any more. It was just a matter of time before the combination of illness and pain claimed him, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.
A couple of weeks before he passed, I went to visit him by myself, leaving Thomas at home with Scott. I didn’t know what state I’d find my grandfather in, and I didn’t know how seeing his beloved great-grandpa so sick would impact Thomas.
When I walked in the room, the first thing my grandfather said to me was quite simply, “Where’s the boy? I need to see my boy.”
“I didn’t bring him with me, Grandpa. It’s just me this time. I’ll bring him later. I’ll come back tonight and bring him with me then.”
He started crying then, something I’d never seen before, and which nearly tore me to pieces. “I need to see my boy. I need to see my number ones. You’re my number ones.” He pointed his finger at my father, sitting off to the side. “Number one.” He brought his finger around to me, standing at the end of his bed. “Number one.” As he lowered his arm back to the bed, he half-sobbed again, choking out, “And your boy, he’s my number one. I need my number one.”
I didn’t stay long that afternoon - I had things to accomplish if I was going to come back later that day with Thomas - and as I left, my grandmother walked out of the room with me. “Let’s don’t repeat what he said in there about number ones, ok, hon?” It wasn’t until then that I realized what my grandfather had meant.
I had assumed that my grandfather, in calling us his number ones, was referring to us as his firstborns… my father, the firstborn child… me, the firstborn grandchild… and my son, the firstborn great-grandchild. That had concerned me, and made me wonder if it was possible that dementia was setting in… because Thomas wasn’t his firstborn great-grandchild. My brother’s son, Joshua, is five years older than Thomas and was the first great-grandchild born into this generation of the Ponder family; Thomas was the second. So it wasn’t until my grandmother asked me not to repeat Grandpa’s words about being his number ones that I understood that he wasn’t slipping, wasn’t referring to us as his firstborns.
He was calling us his favorites.
I took Thomas up to the hospital that evening as promised, and sat watching while my grandfather hugged the large three-year-old against his chest, crying and smiling at the same time. Two weeks later, Grandpa was gone.
Tonight I sit vigil by my grandmother’s bedside, watching her toss and squirm and cry, cursing the bevy of incompetent nurses in my head and praying for her to find peace soon. Calling the nurses incompetent is not just me speaking from frustration - so many truly stupid mistakes have been made since my grandmother was brought back in here a week ago that the thought of detailing them all out right now is downright nauseating. I sit here tonight not because she’s on death’s door, but because since her IV came out this evening and they can’t seem to get a new one in, the nurses are incapable of keeping her calm during the night and are afraid that if left unwatched she will pull out the newly-placed NG tube, try to get out of bed, or do something else that will wind up worsening her situation even further. I arrived here at 11:15 this evening, and will stay until either my exhausted aunt or my quite-well-rested father comes to relieve me in the morning. What will be done tomorrow night, I don’t know. The NG tube is to stay in place until a swallowing test can be repeated on Monday, but if they are successfully able to place a picc line tomorrow, they will hopefully be able to give her some Ativan to make her rest through tomorrow night. These are my prayers right now. It feels like they’re all I’ve got left.