Sometimes, during my first trimester, when I was so fucking sick that I was hating the whole idea of parenthood, I would picture my grandpa holding a baby - my baby - and I would gather strength from that.
To say I was close to my grandpa would be an understatement. Before I met my husband, he was the number one person in my life. Before I was born, my mother was the number one person in his.
I could blame this all on Evil Aunt, and I probably will, for the rest of my life. She's manipulative to a scary, haunting degree, and dangerously narcissistic, and she is the voice in his ear, has been for years now. But I can't blame her one hundred percent. He is a man, an adult, and he had a choice. And he has chosen to leave me behind, and my son with me.
***
He calls on occasion, every other week or so. He asks how I'm doing and tells me about his current ailments.
My grandpa is dying. Not the way you think of dying, in a bed surrounded by hopeless Get Well cards and smiling family members and maybe some hospital machinery. He's dying many slow deaths, deaths that take years: of diabetes, kidney disease, prostate cancer, heart disease.
The same way our relationship is dying. One uncomfortable, lying phone conversation at a time. Where he pretends he cares about my life and my son, and I don't say what I want to say because it would upset him too much, and his life is so fragile. Even now, I am so frightened of his impending death. And of ours.
***
He was a big, beautiful man, a Denver cop for twenty-five years, very charming. He carried everything in the world in his breast pocket, and I bet he still does: pens, notebooks, calculators, Trident gum. I sat on his lap my whole young life; it was my safest place. He taught me to hug. He taught me to love. Or at least, he taught me what love should be: without reservation, passionate to the point of silliness, all-forgiving.
When my mother was falling-down drunk, being an absolute asshole for a couple of years following her divorce, I would call him in a rage. Together we'd mourn her decisions, but if I went too far, he would tell me, "She's making a lot of mistakes right now, but I won't talk bad about her. She is my daughter." And that was that.
No more.
***
When I was little and just starting to grasp the concept of death, he would try to get me used to the idea of him not being around anymore. He said he was writing a letter to me, in case he died, and that it would be in his Bible. He explained wills. He knew it would be a devastation. That's how close we were. We were more frightened for one another than ourselves.
"What would happen if I died?" I used to ask.
"Then I'd just have to crawl into the corner there and die, too," he'd say.
***
He tells me Evil Spawn, the girl that Evil Aunt finally had after years of bitching about wanting one, is not like me. She is mean, selfish. When she does not get her way, she tells him she doesn't love him. Like mother, like daughter.
Everyone worried that I would be jealous of Evil Spawn. I was surprised when I wasn't. Mostly, I hoped her arrival would heal my grandpa, make him happy again, give him something to live a few more years for. But when he talks about her, he sounds tired.
Sometimes, he forgets and calls her by my name. This pisses Evil Aunt off to no end.
***
You all have seen pictures of The Bug, but my grandpa hasn't. He doesn't care to.
***
I won't explain how this all happened. I've written about it before. All the crap with Evil Aunt and Evil Grandma and my cousins and Christmas and my mother and all that. He's over there, and I'm here.
***
When I last held his hand, it was so cold. He has no circulation in his arms and legs anymore, and his eyes are going. I massaged his arms until he could feel his hands again. I told him, "Someone needs to do this for you every day." No one does.
***
I tell my ma that everyone who comes into contact with The Bug is blessed, that he has become the joy in so many people's lives, and so if they don't want to know him, it is their loss and not his. And I know he's not missing anything. When I see him with my father-in-law, I know they'll be just as close as I was with Grandpa.
But for real, inside? I'm sad about it. And I'm still grasping at leaves and twigs on this cliff, hoping maybe I can change it somehow, even though it's impossible. It's like all those years when he was telling me he would die one day. I always told him, "No you won't."
posted by Samus @ 4:35 PM
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