This is a man I don't remember with hair
anything but white as snow.
But I remember him, always
with hair that seemed to puff up
on top his head like threaded marshmallow.
He laughed a deep yet hardly audible bellow
through hardly cracked lips of an ear to ear smile.
Sometimes someone so young they couldn't reach the cookie jar
would unknowingly do something that clearly surprised
and delighted him, and his hand would fall upon his shirt
pressing in where there should have been belly
but there was only crumpled shirt.
And from that crumpled shirt would roar a hardy chuckle,
usually followed by a scary cough.
The kind of cough that even a child pauses to think about.
The kind you get when your heart chokes
from laughter on a reminder that you're not dead yet.

I don't remember him without snow white marshmallow hair,
but that seems like a lifetime ago.
I remember him serious more often than not.
He was tall and despite his empty shirt of a body he was intimidating.
He must have had a foot of snow atop his head, which added to the effect.
Though he was intimidating he was never scary.
That cold stone face was nothing less than an invitation to entice a smile
and make this man choke on his own heart.
But that seems like a lifetime ago.

I didn't understand back then what the choke was;
my grandpa having a half lung.
And you might read that and feel sad and defeated but
he laughed in the face of death,
without a breath to make a sound he screamed more with his eyes
than his mouth ever could,
"Half a lung is more than I need."

We miss so much as a child, that we only grasp as an adult
if we're lucky enough to have the sense to look back with new eyes
and renewed youth to see the details for what they really are;
our memories, however forgotten, mismanaged or fuzzy.
But we see them if we're lucky,
sometimes for better and sometimes for hurts.

I spent a lot of time at his house
but most of it was spending time with grandma or the box of toys,
or reaching for the cookie jar.
When lots of family came over we'd play card games for nickles
and despite all the fun I would eagerly await grandma's supper;
even if we weren't planning to eat there.
What did I know, I was a kid.

Their house was no castle but I made it my fort.
How often I'd hide under the desk
where the box of toys as my shield to hide me from the giants in the room.
I drug that box around until it fell apart.
He would often sit in his rocking chair not rocking,
pipe in hand and mouth and eyes fixated on the television
as he watched me.
I would find a way to get his attention:
"Grandpa, grandpa, grandpa, watch me, watch me!"
He'd look over and I'd giggle from beneath the desk and laugh and say,
"You can't see me!"
When I first did this he'd entertain me, "Where did he go?" He'd say.
At some point I remember being too big to fit under the desk
and by then my family thought I ought to be old enough to know better than to try.
I never saw the harm in trying.

When I was old enough to follow the stories I'd watch soap opera's with grams.
It wasn't long before I decided they bored me.
I remember some things about this house so well, because they bored me so much.
The bad wallpaper in the spare room and the negative energy it had,
from my uncle staying in it.
The front door with all its character, yet it was lifeless and unchanging.
The cracked cement of the front step, the duel apples trees out back.
How they had a garden with corn stalks and I thought that was the second most amazing thing in that part of the world.
The fresh strawberries was the first.
Digging up carrots was third.
There was an old shed I wasn't allowed in,
and a tree with robin's eggs in a nest. A robin that chased me down for scoping it out.

There was this clock on the wall, near where they tracked our height,
that I spent a lot of time with
when my ever racing eyes were searching for motion.
A little known fact;
old people aren't very mobile.
They didn't seem old to me then, despite the snow white hair.
My grandma even seemed tall once.
Now I can't hug her without bending my knees and reaching down at the same time.
So far I've avoided putting her in a headlock.

Yes this home had distractions, even cookies,
and yes my grams is lots of fun. I'm lucky enough to still have her today.
But my favorite time in their home was with grandpa
putting puzzles together in the basement.
He said I was good at it. I didn't believe him, and I was right.
It felt good when he said it though.
Puzzles seemed so important to him.
He worked on them day and night, huge puzzles,
a dedicated puzzle table.
I never saw any completed puzzles up on the walls
so I can only assume afterwords he tore them apart
and back in the box they went.
Yet as they came together he seemed to have this sense of accomplishment,
as if it was the last great task he needed to complete on this Earth.
I was always eager to help him.
I never thought we'd run out of puzzles.

They eventually moved out of that little house and into a home.
I felt it was the other way around.
The family pictures didn't seem as bright in the new place
as they did in the dimly lit living room of their old.
By this point I didn't see much of gramps and grams.
I was older, had my own life to live. Should have visited more often.

Gramps got sick. More sick then I had ever known him before.
I only visited once, with dad.
Dad is the oldest son and naturally expected to be the wisest and strongest.
He played the part well, though I could see he was in almost as much pain and grandpa.
When we entered ICU I didn't see the crumpled shirt.
He had traded in for crumpled sheets.
Tubes poured out of him, equipment meant to keep him alive surrounded him.
He had been there a long time. Three months I think, maybe longer.
This was my first and last visit.

He couldn't talk to us, and what he did try to communicate
the hospital staff wrote off as nonsense.
"He doesn't know what he's trying to say."
Whatever lets you sleep after ignoring an old man on his final, wispy breaths.

The visit was short, awkward and confusing.
Nothing like the movies.
Grandpa wasn't holding my hand and telling me it was okay,
don't worry, it's my time and I'm okay. Everything will be okay.
He wasn't giving me final words of inspiration and hope.
He had no advice to share, stories, or sentiments.
Grandpa couldn't talk despite being conscious.
He looked scared and confused.
He looked pale and brittle
and cold and broken.

A family meeting was called.

It was time to make a decision.
I just saw him for the first time in, who knows how long?
He probably knew how long.
I just saw him, still with lots of white hair. Still tall,
though horizontal. How could we be at this point already?
Yet it remained like a brutal, stale air; this question.
"He's not showing any improvement..."
The only pause was in our hearts.
"You need to decide if it's time to pull the plug."
As if his life can be summed up as some kind of roaring vacuum
that reached too far for its cord.

The discussion was sad and short.
The decision was easy.

I went back to grandpa's room with dad.
The strength my dad showed that day made him a hero to me always.
He did for his dad what I'm sure I could not do for him,
he held it together while he asked if he wanted to live.

How do you ask your father if he's ready to die?

Grandpa showed no signs of confusion.
His eyes opened as wide as I ever seen,
he pushed himself up in his bed with strength we thought lost.
Tears rolled up in his eyes, a man I never knew to cry,
and he shook his head. He shook his head so hard I thought it might snap off.
I WANT TO LIVE his eyes screamed.
DON'T KILL ME came the silent words from a man without a lung.

"Okay, okay, okay! We're not going to let you die!"
My dad's words had a weight of relief. A renewed hope.

I don't remember much else from that day.
The family talked, the doctors talked, I sat
and thought about my grandpa's eyes;
about his astonishing cling to life in the face of certain death.

The doctors said the machines were keeping him alive.
I knew they were killing him. That bed was killing him.
Once he knew this he started to fight again.
He fought himself right out of the hospital and back home again.

He died very shortly after,
but he was home, with his wife;
surrounded with pictures of his kids,
and grand kids.

He still had his hair.

02/17/2013

Author's Note: I love you Grandpa Pratt.

Posted on 02/18/2013
Copyright © 2024 Jody Pratt