I’ve spent this week visiting with my paternal grandfather before he dies.
He got dubbed the name “Moose” in the 40s when his red, curly hair stuck out of his middle-school football helmet and made him look like the old cartoon of Bullwinkle. He was called Moose by everyone—coworkers, wife, grandchildren—after that.
When I walked into his room in hospice, I was stunned by his gaunt jaw. It hung open, reminding me of my brother Quentin sleeping on long road trips with his head cocked back on the seat and his mouth splayed. Papa Moose’s breathing was labored, with near-silent mini-breaths punctuated by deep rattling snores. His body, thin and withering.
His ‘O’ of a mouth strained into the biggest smile he could manage when he saw me. I started to cry, hugging his suddenly small chest.
Though his cheeks were hollow, his nose ran straight and solid above his cheekbones; the “Moss” nose that I have. His snowy hair had thinned. His eyes were still pure, sky blue. When a hospice caretaker came in to feed him his dinner, she looked at me and said “You look like him! You look a lot like him.” I was flattered.
I visited with him the next three days, through stormy monsoon Texas weather. His speech was labored, often half-mumbling sentences or unable to speak at all. But his perception was still clear. My dad was there, hobbling on crutches from a knee surgery. Papa Moose looked at him and checked in, “How’s that knee doing?”
He was a gardener; he turned any yard his family had into a small oasis. I told him that I, myself, had managed to find a curly-haired, red-headed, green thumb to fall in love with. He sweetly warned, “Gotta watch out for skin cancer.”
I held his hand for hours. His hands were surprisingly strong, like an infant’s when they grasp you in a tight lock of small fingers.
“Your hands are strong!” I told him, sitting on the side of his bed. “I remember when I started my first farm job, and you asked to see my hands.” He smiled wide again, remembering. At that time, he’d folded open my palm as if he were reading it, touching the small beginnings of calluses.
“You’ve worked hard all your life,” I continued. It’s true. From a poverty-stricken childhood to university to his career in mathematics and early computing, he loved work. “You’ve done a great job, with work and six children and a mess of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
“I’m trying,” he said, before shutting his eyes to rest a while.
It’s difficult, being in hospice, but evokes such tenderness in everyone there. From my vantage point of a recliner in a corner of the room, my aunt seemed angelic. So delicate and kind, saying what she was about to do before doing it and asking him what he’d like. “I’m just going to adjust your feet so you’re more comfy,” she’d say, moving pillows around.
My aunt’s hands are shaped like mine, like my dad’s, but hers are pale and freckled like my mom’s. With her freckled complexion and curly red hair, at my parents’ wedding everyone assumed she was part of my mom’s family.
I watched her long fingers brush Papa Moose’s teeth and swab his mouth. I thought of my mom. I thought of how lucky it must be to have a parent live this long, how I wish I’d have seen my mother to this point.
Or perhaps it would’ve been awful, perhaps watching her decay would’ve been tortuous, perhaps it’s not luck at all. I’ve tried to let go of what a vision of a “good death” is—it’s too subjective, too difficult to predict.
My second day there, my grandpa asked in a whisper, “Will you just visit a while?”
“Of course, Papa Moose,” I said.
He slept most of the day. We’d brought flowers and they gently bobbed in the breeze of the AC. There was a pink drawing from great-grandchildren with “We love Papa Moose” scrawled in cute jumbly letters. Light filtered through the blinds of the window. His toes would wriggle occasionally, his breath oscillating from silent to sudden gasps of breath.
“It’s been so good visiting with you,” he told me on my last day. I loved it, too, I said. I cried again, saying goodbye. It was goodbye, for me. I won’t be able to get back to Texas until the one-day funeral.
It’s not that I knew my grandfather very well. Not that I have a trove of memories of childhood interactions and play and joy. He was a very private man. He’d mostly be in his study, in his room, in his garden. But he was always good, always sweet. There are many pictures of me sitting on his lap, sleeping on his shoulder. He was always safe and warm and steady.
Age has softened him. He doesn’t have the energy to put up walls. He’s now loving openly, and I hope he finds relief in it.
Being at his bedside, I was reminded of one Buddhist story—I can’t quite recall the teacher’s name, or easily find it with the help of Google, so I apologize for the lack of reference. But a pupil once asked a great Buddhist teacher, “What surprises you most about humanity?” And the teacher replied, “That one can see death all around and still not believe it will happen to oneself.”
I also discovered this powerful and gracious Irish poet and theologian, Pádraig Ó Tuama, this week. His poem “The Facts of Life” resonated with me deeply. I hope you enjoy it.