Grandpa

My grandfather died yesterday.

We, or at least I, had high hopes for some improvement when he entered the assisted living place in March 2010. However, it soon became apparent that it would simply be his last address before he went to be reunited with my grandmother. No one knew the time frame, and ultimately it didn't really matter. I just hoped that he was comfortable and that as the dementia creeped further in, that he wasn't aware of its presence.

Very soon after he moved into the home, he had to move to the locked memory unit for those with Alzheimer's and dementia. He had his own room and free reign of that unit, but the exit door to the rest of the facility was locked. Of course, I heard that his engineer-trained mind figured out the code to the door by observing others coming and going and that he either tried to or did let himself out on at least one occasion. Ornery... not hard to see where my dad gets it!

As time passed, he spent more and more time in a wheelchair; his walker used less and less. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and started wearing oxygen. Recently, he battled Shingles. And he celebrated his 97th birthday.

I saw him several times over the year and a half he lived there. Each time he was a little thinner and a little less in the present. But Grandpa was still in there somewhere. He knew me up until the last time I visited over Memorial Day weekend of this year, although I'm not sure that last time that he knew me until I told him who I was. He did know his three children right up to the end, and I was told he knew my brother when he went to visit last month. He had a bookshelf that my aunt kept stocked full of family photos. And there were beautiful photos of my grandmother on the walls that I had never seen before. I always asked him about some of the photos he had in his room when I visited... it was somewhat of a meter of how he was doing on that day, depending on who he knew in the pictures and what he said about them.

My aunt, uncle, and cousins live very close to the home and I believe at least one of them saw him every single day he was there. They stayed on top of his healthcare, and made sure he was getting what he needed. For that, I am pretty sure I am safe in saying our entire family is grateful.

Recently, he wasn't eating or drinking, and he was sleeping a lot. Three things that are not good signs when you are 97 years old and already under hospice care. Friday or Saturday of last week, the hospice people told my aunt that it wouldn't be long... I believe the timeframe was two weeks, give or take. Sunday, my dad, aunt, and uncle (Grandpa's children) and their spouses visited him for about four hours. I don't think he was awake at all, but I'm sure he knew they were there. I'm sure they all talked to him, and I would guess that he heard them and knew they were there to say their goodbyes. Perhaps that's what he was waiting for; he died the next morning in his sleep.

He's been gone now for about 24 hours. I am enormously sad, but I know it was for the best. And it makes me happy to imagine the joyous reunion going on with my grandmother right now. She's been patiently waiting 25 years for her love.

Saturday we will gather to say goodbye. It will be good to see all of my cousins. I don't think we've all been together since... well, I don't even know. Maybe my wedding, which was 17 years ago! I just wish it wasn't only at weddings and funerals. We will celebrate 97 years of life... more than 90 of which were of excellent quality. We will cry; we will laugh. We will be thankful for the family he built and for his giant presence in all of our lives.

But in the end, even giants fall.


“The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.”

~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act III, Scene I