The Days Long Gone
My grandfather died last night at 6:30PM. My grandparents on both sides of the family have been alive and self-sufficient throughout my entire life, and I've been indescribably fortunate to have their love over 27 years. But he was ready for it and the rest of us were ready for it, after his struggles with dementia and cancer. When my family visited them last year over Christmas, it was with the intention that it will probably be the last time I would be able to see him, so there were proper goodbyes and closure. Closure is good.
Ray Bradbury puts some of my feelings particularly well, from Dandelion Wine:
You ever see a snake bother to keep his peeled skin? That's about all you got here today in this bed is fingernails and snake skin. One good breath would send me up in flakes. Important thing is not the me that's lying here, but the me that's sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me that's downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count. I'm not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family. I'll be around a long time. A thousand years from now a whole township of my offspring will be biting sour apples in the gumwood shade.
When I said goodbye to grandpa, the last thing he said was a joke: "That's quite the Cossack hat you have." I've always had pretty thick hair. Maybe he wasn't joking and it was the dementia, but he was always a joker. Even when he knew his memory was going, he would still make jokes at the dinner table. I can't help but think of Tolstoy's The Cossacks, a scene where the protagonist is leaving the Caucasus:
"Well, thank you! Good-bye, Gaffer. God willing, we may meet again," said Olenin, getting up and moving towards the passage.
The old man continued where he was, sitting on the floor.
"Is that how you says good-bye? Oh, the foolishness in you!" he began. "Bless me if I knows what's come over people these days. You and me have kept company - kept company well nigh a whole year, and now 'Good-bye!' and off he goes! Don't you know I cares about you, feels sort of sorry about you? Kind of odd man out you is, always by yourself and alone. No one as loves you. Times when I lies awake I thinks about you and me heart aches. Same as the song says:
'Tis not easy, brother mine,
In a foreign land to live.
An' that's the way 'tis with you."
"Well, good-bye," said Olenin again.
The old man got up and held out his hand. Olenin pressed it and turned to go.
"Nay, give us your mug - yer mug, now."
And the old man took Olenin's head between his huge hands, kissed him three times with wet moustaches and lips, and began to cry.
"I loves you dearly, I does. Good-bye!"
Bye, pap-pap.
Ray Bradbury puts some of my feelings particularly well, from Dandelion Wine:
You ever see a snake bother to keep his peeled skin? That's about all you got here today in this bed is fingernails and snake skin. One good breath would send me up in flakes. Important thing is not the me that's lying here, but the me that's sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me that's downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count. I'm not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family. I'll be around a long time. A thousand years from now a whole township of my offspring will be biting sour apples in the gumwood shade.
When I said goodbye to grandpa, the last thing he said was a joke: "That's quite the Cossack hat you have." I've always had pretty thick hair. Maybe he wasn't joking and it was the dementia, but he was always a joker. Even when he knew his memory was going, he would still make jokes at the dinner table. I can't help but think of Tolstoy's The Cossacks, a scene where the protagonist is leaving the Caucasus:
"Well, thank you! Good-bye, Gaffer. God willing, we may meet again," said Olenin, getting up and moving towards the passage.
The old man continued where he was, sitting on the floor.
"Is that how you says good-bye? Oh, the foolishness in you!" he began. "Bless me if I knows what's come over people these days. You and me have kept company - kept company well nigh a whole year, and now 'Good-bye!' and off he goes! Don't you know I cares about you, feels sort of sorry about you? Kind of odd man out you is, always by yourself and alone. No one as loves you. Times when I lies awake I thinks about you and me heart aches. Same as the song says:
'Tis not easy, brother mine,
In a foreign land to live.
An' that's the way 'tis with you."
"Well, good-bye," said Olenin again.
The old man got up and held out his hand. Olenin pressed it and turned to go.
"Nay, give us your mug - yer mug, now."
And the old man took Olenin's head between his huge hands, kissed him three times with wet moustaches and lips, and began to cry.
"I loves you dearly, I does. Good-bye!"
Bye, pap-pap.