Sadness abounds
My parents left for a 10 day long hunting caribou expedition in the northern most points of Canada on September 2nd. When talking with my mom on the telephone before their departure, she told me that I should probably call my grandparents. My grandpa wasn’t doing very well. He had been a bit confused lately, it seems. Let me give some background here.
My grandfather is a life long farmer. He lives and breathes crops. He never went to college. In fact, he may not have graduated from high school; I’m not sure. Farming is his blood and passion.
Now, I would not call my relationship with my grandfather (or my grandmother, for that matter) very close. I am their only grandchild, but they are very…well..stern people. When I was born, they were both well past the age of wanting much to do with child raising. When they would babysit me, it was mostly my grandmother who did the watching as my grandfather was always gone out to the fields. Even when he retired from farming, he still would always be gone to help in any way he could. My grandmother wasn’t all that interactive with me, tending to do the household things that she was accustomed to doing already.
My other grandparents (my dads parents) were much more hands on, loving, and caring. We played games together. They would let me walk down a few block to the corner store to buy milk, and give me $10 to do so. The rest of the money was mine to buy whatever I wanted. We would sing songs. They had toys to play with. They were great grandparents.
Because of this big divide between the two sets, I grew up with more resentment towards my farmer grandparents than my active loving ones. I tolerated them, but I certainly didn’t feel like they were very important people in my lives.
Flash forward to today; all four of my grandparents are still alive, but they’re all pushing ages where it’s apparent they’re not going to be alive much longer. It seems the first one who is going to go is my farmer grandfather.
I called my grandmother a few days ago to catch up on what’s been happening and to say thanks for the birthday card they sent me. She told me that grandfather was in the hospital. His confusion over the past few weeks had taken it toll on both of them. Apparently, he would get up in the middle of the night and go for walks. This is something he normally did everyday anyway since he had a heart attack 15+ years ago, but it was always at 6am or so. Now it had changed to 2am. He didn’t know what time it was. It was just time to get up and go for a walk.
Apparently the middle of the last week he fell down and was unable to get back up. My grandmother wasn’t able to help him, so she called an ambulance. They took him to the hospital for evaluation. After combining all of the stories, coupled with the fact that he had been eating a LOT of food (and he’s not overweight, mind you) they decided to do a cat scan. And with that they found the cause: a tennis ball sized brain tumor.
When I talked with my grandma, she seemed optimistic that the doctor thought it was operable. I wasn’t so certain; brain surgery on an 84 year old man seemed a bit of a stretch. So I called my mom, in hopes of getting the real story. She and I both seemed to agree that it wasn’t a very good thing. Annie and I had plans to go to Indy on Saturday, so we thought we might make the extra hour drive to visit him in the hospital he was staying for a visit. My mom said she didn’t expect him to come back home from the hospital. I took this as a sign we better visit him. So, we decided we’d make the trek on Saturday.
The next day I was informed that he was being transported to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. He was to see a specialist. This was advantageous to us as we would be nearby anyway, so visiting him would be relatively easy. I talked to my mom and my grandma and we worked out some various schemes to get up there and visit during the normal times (which were fairly limited; apparently the neuro center has much more restrictive hours than other areas).
We stopped at Methodist for a visit and went to his room. He was in a large room that had four beds. In the middle of the room was a nurse’s station that was manned by two nurses 24/7. Apparently, neurosciences is a pretty special place.
He was sitting in a chair next to his bed, hooked up to multiple machines, and was reading a newspaper. My grandmother was nearby talking to the nurses. Two other patients in the room, at the other end, were sleeping. He saw us and didn’t really say hello, but kind of acknowledged our presence. He knew us as familiar, but I’m not certain he could have identified who we were.
For the next 15 minutes or so I conversed with my grandmother (who is still very active and alert). My grandfather would ask questions every once in a while: how work was going, if they were keeping us busy. He would also chime in things like “Randy is going to start picking beans next week if the rain holds off” and “I gotta get down there to do that spraying”. He asked me some questions about stuff he read about Purdue in the paper. I really didn’t understand what he was talking about. I fairly certain he was reading the paper but not really comprehending any of it. Left there, he surely would have been reading the same paper over and over again.
We had last seem him about 10 weeks ago when the family visited our house. He was feeble, but alert. He knew what was going on and could carry a conversation. Oh what a difference 10 weeks made. Now he was confused, but not scared. He just didn’t really know what was going on. He recognized he was in the hospital, but didn’t know why. He told us that “once you’ve been to as many as I have, they all look the same”. My grandma said he kept thinking he was in Paris, Illinois. Aside from owning farm land there and having family that lives here, he didn’t spend much time in Paris.
It was sad to see him in this state. My grandmother came close to tears once when we discussed the fact that she didn’t think the doctors could do anything about the tumor. A biopsy is scheduled for Monday to determine if it’s benign or malignant, but the only two options are chemo or surgery; both of which are pretty invasive for someone that old.
No, I think I’ve resigned myself to the fact that he’s going to be hospital bound for the rest of his life. At this point, I’m not sure if that’s on the order of days, weeks, or years. Considering the rapid growth rate of his tumor, I can’t imagine it would be very long. But we simply don’t know.
These past few days, I’ve come to peace with him and our past. He’s been there for me and done things for me that I’m certain I don’t know about. He’s lived a very full life and has done many fantastic things, which is all any of us can do. He could have done some things better, but that’s the story for all of us. While I’m sad to see him fade, I recognize the fact that he’s not in any pain, is brutally unaware of just what is killing him, and has enjoyed so many of life’s pleasures over the past 20+ years of retirement.
Consider me completely unstoked for his funeral, and the next 5-10 years of funeral attendance. But I consider myself very lucky to have met all four grandparents and to have gone this long in life with them all still being very much alive.
I’m closing the comments on this one to avoid the inevitable condolence I’m sure someone will post. While I thank you for your thoughts, I wrote this blog as a way to help myself reflect on the past few days. I’m not comfortable with receiving pity or compassion over grief, so for me it’s easier to deal with this without any virtual pats-on-the-backs. Thanks for your thoughtful intentions.