Paying our last respects

I’ll do this here instead of over commenting on the Captain’s blog.

My Grandmother died when I was seven. Outside of a few pictures I have of her, I have only two mental images of my Grandmother, neither of which were actually seen by me. The first is an aerial view of what it must have looked like for her to bend me over her knee and wipe my bottom. She did this a handful of times, and I always wished it wasn’t happening when it happened, so my memory of it is as a bystander.

The second image is while the paramedics were trying to revive her. I was not there when it happened. My mother was there. The only thing I learned from her death was that a seven year old didn’t need a detailed description of someone dying.

I learned a lot more from my Grandfather’s death when I was 19. I learned that mourners come in many varieties, but two types stand out in my family. There are those who do what they believe the living expect of them, and those who do what they believe the dead expect of them.

My Grandfather died from a clogged blood vessel in his neck. They knew it was a problem a year earlier. He knew it would kill him, but he felt that he had paid those greedy doctors enough already. He spent his last few days in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling and gasping for air.

My brother and I went to see him the evening he died. His body had not slept or acknowledged anyone’s presence for two days. My step-Grandmother had been waiting in his room the entire time, along with a handful of my uncles and aunts. When we walked in we went right to his bedside and a chorus of voices told us that he had not responded to anyone for days. My brother went to his right side where his arm was on top of the covers. I went to the other side. It was a scary thing to watch him trying to breath with this ventilator over his face. His eyes fixed straight ahead.

His left arm was under the covers, but I felt the need to hold his hand as my brother was doing. As I reached under his blankets and took his hand in mine his eyes darted over and looked right at me. I froze. He was still gasping for air. I felt completely helpless. Can he hear me? Should I say something? I felt like his eyes were trying to say something, or ask a question maybe. Something like “how did I do?” Or maybe “Can I go now?” I felt as if I were being asked to somehow judge his life. I felt like I needed to say something profound. All I could manage was a faint smile and a gentle squeeze of his hand.

“I think he’s looking at you.” I heard my brother say, and before he finished the words, my step-Grandmother replied with “NO, he hasn’t responded to anyone.”

His eyes slowly crept back to his spot on the ceiling. My brother and I said no more about him looking at me, but we know he did. Why me and not someone else is still a mystery.

It was at his funeral that I saw the real differences in how people mourn. It reminded me of all the kids who would cry on the last night of church camp. They cry because they feel obligated to do so. They cry because it’s fashionable, and it’s all too clear that it’s forced.

I had a job that summer working with an emergency forest fire fighter’s crew. I had a beeper and everything. My cousin saw the beeper, and asked why I brought it. “Aren’t you gonna turn it off?” All I could think of was the verse where Jesus says ‘Let the dead bury the dead.’ Our Grandfather not only had an incredible work ethic, he had invested in my education, and if I missed a single call I could have missed working for the entire summer.

“I don’t think that’s what he’d want me to do.”

My cousin was not impressed. I didn’t get a call that day, but I know leaving that beeper on was the right thing for me to do. If my cousin had a beeper, that would have been different.