Yellow
I am currently actively ignoring how unsettled I am after my trip home. My mother had warned me -- as I mentioned earlier -- that my grandfather is not doing well.
I didn't have time to see him Saturday and only had 30 minutes with him before lunch yesterday. It's the first I've seen him since Xmas. He is having some kind of liver failure, and he is bright yellow under his normally leathery, brown skin. He's lost a lot of weight since he can only stomach a half scrambled egg and a biscuit every day. He feels very ill to his stomach if he stands. He is in a lot of pain and remains in bed many days.
My youngest brother and I went over yesterday. He and my grandmother spoke to us animatedly enough -- about their cats, about golf, the Southern spa where Roosevelt went to recover and died, about my mother's selflessness, about how my grandmother accidently sprayed her hair with furniture polish.
We had to leave to meet my parents for lunch. Grand-daddy stood up then, shakily, and said, "You boys will never have any idea how much you have meant to me." And started to cry, something I can't recall having ever seen of my grandfather.
It seems so much in reverse to me. I have led a life that I know -- even what little he knows of it -- is disappointing to him. We used to be very close, bonded over word games and reading and reflection. And I've kept my distance in the last few years because of that, seeing him little, while my brothers have stayed close to home and seen him often. The truth is that he'll likely not know how much he's meant to me. He -- I realized last night -- has been my model for masculinity for so long.
He has been tall, quietly hard-working, a factory worker, preacher, and small farmer, who might be called genteel, except for the fact that his manners are meant and he does not come from money. He has always looked like Gregory Peck to me, talked like his Atticus Finch. His eyes sharpen with gentle intent and honesty when he has something bald to tell you and he is not afraid to do so and he is not harsh when he does. He punctuates his day of manual work -- whether facory or tiller or dish towel -- with stints of reading or crosswords or watching M.A.S.H. (he was in the Korean War) or Wheel of Fortune. He calls people in his family Son or Daughter or Wife or Brother. When he preaches, he is the most amazing man I have ever known; he is so palpably humble, curious, appreciative, earnest, determined and wise. He always appeals to people's wisdom and good-heartedness; he never cajoles or lays guilt, rarely reprimands; he always presents himself as daily struggling with the same questions everyone else is. His voice, when he speaks to more than a hand-full of people, is softened at the edges, but clear. He is also mischievous, likes to look at you out of the corner of his eye, wait for you to catch on to what he is saying or what he has done. He loves to walk, in familiar or strange nature. He can bring an earlier time very much alive for me in his stories. He seems utterly able to extend tradition with sincerity and meaning, making it into something he can use in good conscience.
He has always seemed the kindest and strongest of men to me, more important than any person who got themselves onto screen or into books.
They say he has a week to a few months to live.
Josh and I hugged him, told him we loved him, and left the house with Granny. She was crying. She told us that he is happy to go to the next life and see people he's missed for some time, to talk to them. She said she gets angry sometimes and wants to scream, "But, what about me?! I'll be lonely!" Then she dried up and nodded her head, said, "But you boys know that I have had him, had him in my life since we married when I was 16, and I guess it's ok that he gets to spend some time with others until I join him. And I'm not quite ready to go. I just don't want to see him suffer in pain every day." She told us to go about our lives, that she and Grand-Daddy are doing ok, that everything is just a natural process, to know we were loved in our lives, and to please not worry.
She showed us their new litter of kittens in the barn, mostly manxes, some with nubby half-tails.
Everything, at the end, seemed overly factual and still moving.
I have been typing and deleting tenses here, starting and stopping in my telling this.
I am going to go back home to spend a little more time with them, the next weekend I have off. I feel old selves opening and closing doors inside me. I want to be sure and see as much of my grandfather as possible, in this light and in this season, before he closes the door behind him.
I didn't have time to see him Saturday and only had 30 minutes with him before lunch yesterday. It's the first I've seen him since Xmas. He is having some kind of liver failure, and he is bright yellow under his normally leathery, brown skin. He's lost a lot of weight since he can only stomach a half scrambled egg and a biscuit every day. He feels very ill to his stomach if he stands. He is in a lot of pain and remains in bed many days.
My youngest brother and I went over yesterday. He and my grandmother spoke to us animatedly enough -- about their cats, about golf, the Southern spa where Roosevelt went to recover and died, about my mother's selflessness, about how my grandmother accidently sprayed her hair with furniture polish.
We had to leave to meet my parents for lunch. Grand-daddy stood up then, shakily, and said, "You boys will never have any idea how much you have meant to me." And started to cry, something I can't recall having ever seen of my grandfather.
It seems so much in reverse to me. I have led a life that I know -- even what little he knows of it -- is disappointing to him. We used to be very close, bonded over word games and reading and reflection. And I've kept my distance in the last few years because of that, seeing him little, while my brothers have stayed close to home and seen him often. The truth is that he'll likely not know how much he's meant to me. He -- I realized last night -- has been my model for masculinity for so long.
He has been tall, quietly hard-working, a factory worker, preacher, and small farmer, who might be called genteel, except for the fact that his manners are meant and he does not come from money. He has always looked like Gregory Peck to me, talked like his Atticus Finch. His eyes sharpen with gentle intent and honesty when he has something bald to tell you and he is not afraid to do so and he is not harsh when he does. He punctuates his day of manual work -- whether facory or tiller or dish towel -- with stints of reading or crosswords or watching M.A.S.H. (he was in the Korean War) or Wheel of Fortune. He calls people in his family Son or Daughter or Wife or Brother. When he preaches, he is the most amazing man I have ever known; he is so palpably humble, curious, appreciative, earnest, determined and wise. He always appeals to people's wisdom and good-heartedness; he never cajoles or lays guilt, rarely reprimands; he always presents himself as daily struggling with the same questions everyone else is. His voice, when he speaks to more than a hand-full of people, is softened at the edges, but clear. He is also mischievous, likes to look at you out of the corner of his eye, wait for you to catch on to what he is saying or what he has done. He loves to walk, in familiar or strange nature. He can bring an earlier time very much alive for me in his stories. He seems utterly able to extend tradition with sincerity and meaning, making it into something he can use in good conscience.
He has always seemed the kindest and strongest of men to me, more important than any person who got themselves onto screen or into books.
They say he has a week to a few months to live.
Josh and I hugged him, told him we loved him, and left the house with Granny. She was crying. She told us that he is happy to go to the next life and see people he's missed for some time, to talk to them. She said she gets angry sometimes and wants to scream, "But, what about me?! I'll be lonely!" Then she dried up and nodded her head, said, "But you boys know that I have had him, had him in my life since we married when I was 16, and I guess it's ok that he gets to spend some time with others until I join him. And I'm not quite ready to go. I just don't want to see him suffer in pain every day." She told us to go about our lives, that she and Grand-Daddy are doing ok, that everything is just a natural process, to know we were loved in our lives, and to please not worry.
She showed us their new litter of kittens in the barn, mostly manxes, some with nubby half-tails.
Everything, at the end, seemed overly factual and still moving.
I have been typing and deleting tenses here, starting and stopping in my telling this.
I am going to go back home to spend a little more time with them, the next weekend I have off. I feel old selves opening and closing doors inside me. I want to be sure and see as much of my grandfather as possible, in this light and in this season, before he closes the door behind him.