Grandpa

I'm sitting across from my grandpa's maroon easy-chair.  I've never seen another person sit in that leather chair.  And now it's empty.  

His struggled, heavy breaths wafting slowly into the room are the only sounds in this house, other than the quiet crackling of the fire next to me.  I sit, following the flow of air in and out of his lungs.  The flow stops.  Intent, I look at him, the whole world seems to freeze as I hang in limbo searching for the sound of another breath.  In the silence, images of my strong grandpa come back to me.  A handsome, young man singing in a quartet touring the nation in the 50s.  A wild grandpa who built the biggest rope swing you ever saw, just so 8-year-old me could get the thrill of my life.  More water comes to my eyes, then, I hear it, another breath, with a weak cough.  

I continue to watch his sleeping body, framed by 15 bouquets of flowers.  He looks like he's in a floral shop, but he's at home, in this hospital bed.  He has lived in this two-story house in the woods since he was not much older than me. Behind him, out the window is the vivacious spread of Oregon fauna.  In contrast, his skin is yellow and loose, the meat on his face gone, revealing the contours of his skull.  His mouth is hanging open, in an expression that looks halfway between shock and horror.  His hazy eyes are slightly open gazing at the popcorn ceiling, but he is deep in a hallucination.  

When he could still talk a few days ago he would allude to his hallucinations.  Intrigued, I would ask for more, but he could only say vague things, such as, "I think that was the right one."  

Once he woke up and managed to say, "I'm disoriented."  My grandma proceeded to tell him the time and date, and I added, "you're still on planet earth," thinking that would be more relevant.  

The next day when he woke up he said, "I wonder which of these I won't wake up from."

The process of watching a soul leave a body is fascinating, eerie, heavy, and holy.  I find myself dying to know what his experience is like.  He is more somewhere else than here, and I wonder where he is.  What has he learned? What does he think of this life he has lived?..(if he thinks of it.)  What would he tell me if he could talk?  

I've spent much time in the last week looking into his eyes, hoping to understand a bit, hoping to see him, and for him to see me seeing him.  But whenever his eyes would hit mine he would glance away.  I got the sense he didn't like being seen.  You see, this decrepit man in front of me used to be a superstar.  Wherever he went, whatever community he was apart of he was the star, he was the one that everyone looked up to, the one who brought the life.  He was the one who could play a trumpet and the piano at the same time, he was the one who could balance anything on his hand or nose.  He was the one who could tell a story with his eyes and everyone would be transported.  He was the one who could climb fastest and run the farthest.  He was the doctor that organized meetings that resulted in hundreds quitting smoking or changing to a healthy diet.  He was the one who led out in church services, and bible studies.  He was the one who grew a big enough garden to feed a small army.  He was an upper-middle-class, american legend.  The endless flow of flowers and letters indicate that fact.  And now he lays in his bed not even able to clear the saliva from his throat.  He chokes.  

The doorbell rings, and a nurse is now here to wash him.  My mom is back from a walk with a friend, so there is now some life joining the death.  I can feel the air lighten with their presence.  Turning him on his side was difficult for the nurse, so I helped her lift and hold his fragile body.   His skin was rubbery almost like plastic.  I put my hand on his shoulder and told him I loved him, in case he was here.

Now my grandma-his loving wife since he was younger than me-sits beside him and strokes him.  Kissing him.  Telling him how much she loves him and what an amazing man he's been.  You wouldn't know by looking but she doesn't know how to handle what's happening.  She told me that her identity has always been wrapped around her relation to him.  She was always "Jim's wife," she was never "Carolyn."  If she was at a gathering without him she would stand in the shadows, but with him, she would walk tall and straight into the limelight, as the Wife of Dr. McHan.  

Yesterday grandpa sat in his easy chair.  Not that he had the strength to get there, but in his stubbornness he didn't care.  I think it was the last time he'll sit in that chair, in fact I think that was the last time on his feet.  During the 10 foot walk back to his bed, he couldn't find the connection between his mind and his feet, they didn't move, I could see the struggle, he put all he had into it.  But in the end, I had to lift his feet and put one in front of the other.

This morning a varied thrush smacked into the window and died on impact next to the front door.  I moved it so visitors wouldn't see to a moss covered stump in the woods, covering it with a few golden leaves.  I found it hard to walk away.  I felt like something more needed to be done.  Later, as I photographed the Jacuzzi to sell, I saw a tiny shrew lying on a stepping stone.  It was curled up...lifeless...a dew drop glistened in its whiskers, it's little paw folded under it's long nose.

It's everywhere.  Forms dissolving.  Death.  And yet my vision is not darkened.  Let’s go somewhere. I do not feel that death is the enemy.  If death were eliminated, the only thing that would exist would be everything.  And in that case there would be nothing, it would all be light...infinite, formless light.  Or if just some things existed, without death it would be stagnant, there would be no flow, no movement.  Death is the gravity for the river of life.  It makes way for an ever twisting, turning cascade, creating time itself.  Otherwise the flow would cease, nothing coming in, nothing going out.  So death is the hand that reaches down to part the curtain of light and give birth to time.  But what is death really?  Is anything lost?  The thrush already gave birth to 5 more, and the shrew's body will become food for mushrooms, and my grandpa has instilled me with the desire to seek the next challenge.  Though we call them dead, from them has rippled the current state of the river, without them, there would be no us.  So we are a continuation of them.  And if you took us away, there would be no them, they had to go somewhere, and that somewhere is right here.  So between us and them lies an equal sign and the only difference on each side of the equation is the combination of symbols.  So maybe there is no difference between them and us. Maybe there is no death, maybe death is something we have created and focus on that distracts us from the truth, that we are not the pebble that gets picked up by the river for a time and is discarded under a log...we are the entire length of the river.  We are on one side of the equation, so we are on all sides of the equation, we just get to experience the parting of the curtains in different ways every go around.  And we enter the other side of the curtain, and realize there is no time, but the illusive death has reached down and shown us what cannot be seen: the form in the formless. We previously thought we were the form…but form comes from nothing and goes to nothing…the only thing that remains is the eternal essence of our soul.