Fathers and Sons (Introduction / Overture)

Lessons in parenting as my grandpa lay dying.

Overview

Ten days after my son was born, my dad took my grandpa to the ER for a nosebleed.  They found out he had cancer.  Three months later, he was gone.

In the grand scheme of human history, if we’re lucky, our lives become names and dates etched in stone.  Stones, while surrounded by grass and sky, fade and fall.  Instead we live on through the memories of others.  But when they go, our echoes fade with them.  So is living memory.

(As a visual, think the last scene of “The Gangs of New York.”)

This drama played out over 101 days.  Grandpa spent seven days in the hospital and eighty-one days in hospice.  In that time, living an hour away with a newborn, I was able to visit thirteen times.

This drama played out in five months and four generations of men.  As children, we think our daddies are the strongest men ever.  As I held my newborn, my dad carried his dad to the car when he was too weak to walk.  As I changed and bathed my newborn, my dad shaved the stubble from his dad’s face.

This drama played out as my dad embodied his own lessons.  Parents, he always explained, take care of their children.  It’s their job.  But when parents can’t care for themselves, children take care of their parents.  It’s their job.  When I held my newborn, his eyes sparkled at mine.  When I watched my dad care for my grandpa, my grandpa’s eyes showed gratitude while my dad’s showed solemnity.

This drama played out in hospice with long stretches of quiet and blaring televisions.  Outside his dimmed room with brown wooden floors and worn black armchairs, withered and worn adults pulled themselves up and down hallways in wheelchairs.  Some stared blankly.  The staff proved so friendly, but they can’t stop the holding pattern as grief lay beyond the door.

Twice during those four months, my grandpa met his great grandson.  (Nursing homes aren’t places for babies!)  As the generations aligned, it was my son’s 34th day, my 12,630th day, my dad’s 22,194th day, and my grandpa’s 30,176th day.  When those generations aligned, no star outshined my grandpa’s eyes, gazing at my son.  As his chubby newborn fingers wrapped around my grandpa’s old gnarled finger, a life beginning met a life ending.  Sorrow yielded for joy.

During those long days, my son exploded in growth while my grandpa withered.  Tiny frog legs grew chubby.  Cheeks became round.  Arms became rolls.  Meanwhile once strong legs atrophied.  Bed sores developed.  Cheeks sunk.  Both happened so gradually, you’d hardly notice, except for the pictures.

During those long nights, I sat with my son in the nursery, rocking him to sleep.  “Go to sleep,” I gently said.  “Go to sleep.”  Meanwhile my dad sat in hospice, resting on uncomfortable chairs,  his forehead on his hand.  “Go home,” my grandpa gently said.  “Go home.”

On his 30,252nd day, my grandpa wasted to skin over bone.  Not that long ago he still weighed 150 pounds, lean but muscular after a life working.  But on this day, we later found out, he wasted to a mere 78 pounds.  On this day, despite intense pain killers, he suffered so much that any speech took all his effort.  At one point he sat up and stretched out his hands, moving his lips to people unseen.  Then he slept again.  That day we wept, said our goodbyes and just waited.  But that wasn’t the end.

On his 30,253rd day, he slept, rattled, and snored, mouth agape.  Nothing more could waste away.  Having said our goodbyes, we sat numb.  We felt nothing.  He felt nothing.  He was unresponsive yet kept persisting, fighting breath after breath, snore after snore.  We waited for grief, yet grief waited longer.

“Grandpa, we will be okay,” we assured him.  “We love you.  When you see Jesus, it’s okay to leave.”  He kept snoring.

In two days I had logged at least sixteen hours in hospice alone, away from my wife and son.  So I came home late.  An hour passed and my son refused to sleep, so we fixed a small bottle.  Yet as I shook the formula, he suddenly went ballistic in my wife’s arms.  In the dim light, his face went red, his arms flailed, and he writhed and squirmed.  I stared.  Forty-something miles away, something was happening.

At 10:54 Grandpa’s breathing grew erratic.  My parents and sister, still at the bedside, tried finding a nurse.  For the next five minutes, breaths came staggered, uneven.  Numbered.  After 101 days, the drama reached its crescendo.  Without fanfare he inhaled one final time.

At 10:59 Grandpa died peacefully.  My son went silent.  Before my sister called, I already knew.

Seven days later a pewter and silver urn sat at the front of the church, surrounded by yellow sunflowers and white daisies, green accents interspersed like vines.  Pictures stood across several tables like a life time-lapse.  I delivered the eulogy.  After everyone left, I stayed behind to help my parents collect his pictures.  Kin cleans up—first the service, then the house.  Death takes people and leaves stuff behind.

In a cruel twist, the next day was Father’s Day.  Three generations still sat at the table, but not the same three generations.  I’ll always remember my son being hilarious that day, babbling and sucking his thumb.  We all laughed.  Yet I’ll always remember my dad struggling: My first Father’s Day was his first without his father.  Between laughs, his red puffy eyes reminded me of Proverbs 14:13: “Laughter can conceal a heavy heart, but when the laughter ends, the grief remains.”

Grandpa’s picture won’t leave my parent's kitchen table any time soon.

Series Preview

When my maternal grandpa died suddenly in 2010, the day after Thanksgiving, “hospice” lasted hours.  That goodbye was final.  This time in 2024 hospice lasted 80+ days.  This time the hardest part wasn’t the silence or the inevitable, but never knowing which goodbye would be the last.  Each new visit offered new memories, but at the cost of suffering.  Bury the existentialist textbooks!

This series will reflect on my first months of fatherhood—the 101 day storm and its aftermath.  As I learned how to care for my son, I watched my dad care for his dad in the final days.  We each had different parts in different plays, yet similar parts in the universal human drama.  These dual plays offered sharp contrast: of beginnings and endings.

(I am happy to report that since my grandpa’s passing, my dad, no longer preoccupied, has joyfully started settling into his own role as grandpa.  “A chubby baby is a healthy baby,” he remarked this week.)

The purpose isn’t clicks or sympathy, but writing as processing.  Grief isn’t an emotion like sadness, but an intruder who never truly leaves.  You just sort of tolerate it.  But in the meantime, my son played a part he won’t remember.  He will have pictures he won’t remember.  Writing will settle some memories in stone.

Without dwelling or fixating, I’d like to reflect on several topics over the next few months.  The following blurbs offer the most promise.  More ideas sit as outlines.  In total, I’m aiming for novella-length across several topical posts.  This post focused on grandpa himself, but the others will explore my mind wanderings through his seemingly endless stay in hospice.  Grandpa’s drama aims towards the universal.

• Our Descendants Will Forget Us. My son met his great grandpa, but he won’t remember.  (I remember two great grandmas, but I never met any great grandpa’s.)  When he asks, my grandpa will be a picture and name.  Maybe some video clips.  Just as my son will know me his entire life, I won’t have known him.  And on it goes.  When my little boy holds his grandchild, I’ll just be a name.  Living memory will take its course.

• Hospice / Reruns.  After he died, regrets poured in: Sure I asked about family history, but why did I not buy a “journal for grandpa” book and just interview him?  But grandpa was a man of action, not words.  He wanted company, not interrogation.  And so we sat and watched mindless reality TV as spring became summer.  Other life events happened.  We visited for my little brother's senior prom and graduation.  Time flows differently in hospice.  I want to explore this.

• Family Tree.  I’ve always cared about genealogy, but never sought it out.  I asked about our family lineage during a visit, but grandpa’s memory was shaky.  Regarding the family name, which isn’t common, he stared out the window to fresh green trees.  “It’s up to you [to continue the name],” he said. “It’s up to you.”  Before he died, I knew my great aunt traced genealogies some time back.  After he died, I found a family tree, stretching back 200 years, stuffed in his desk.  Who are we but the legacies of those names?  But who are those names?  And perhaps, my great grandchildren might ask, who are you?

• How to Write a Eulogy.  I teach many mediums: letters, scripts, essays.  Yet I’m not sure the eulogy is teachable.  After the funeral, I searched online, curious whether I did it right.  I expected Speaker for the Dead, but found Yahoo Answers instead.  These How To pages offered nothing technically wrong, but having read my share of existentialism in college (part of my Philosophy degree), viewing life through this lens darkened my own lens.  Step One: Speak from the heart.  Step Two: To be continued.

In the meantime, with the 101 day storm behind, I’m learning about teething and high chairs.  Some parenting proves natural, but otherwise you’re re-learning how to breathe.  As part of you now lives on, part of you must die.  That doesn’t happen overnight.  I’m nothing special here, but if we’re all unique, sometimes I wonder about parenting advice itself.  But that’s another topic for another day.

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