The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Life and Death

He Died A Hero

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Field of Sunflowers

This is the sort of post that requires music but what to play is something that is beyond me, or so it feels. I sit here in my chair fighting to come up with the write words to share about my grandfather. I sit here in my chair and try to make sense of something that seems impossible- grandpa is gone. Though I always knew that one day this would happen I find myself wondering if maybe this was just a dream. Until today there had never been a time where I didn’t have grandparents to visit and talk to.

My grandparents were a constant force in my life and now they are all gone. Every…single…one has died and I find that the world is a little bit darker than it was. I shouldn’t be surprised. I have been down this path before. This is not the first time that I have sat at the computer and reminisced about a grandparent. It is not the first time that I have shared some thoughts about talking with the children about death, but I hope that it is the last time for a while.

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I feel numb. I am in a place that exists somewhere between sadness and ambivalence. My grandfathers were my heroes. Two amazing characters who couldn’t have been more alike or more different. Such a contradiction but one that is filled with so much love. And now I find myself trying to figure out what sort of words I intend to share at the funeral. Now I sit here lost in thought and memory trying to find the right words to write about him. Chances are I will speak off the cuff. Chances are that I’ll share a few words and hope that I don’t sound silly. And no matter what I say afterwards I’ll kick myself for not sharing XYZ or for not talking about PDQ.

It is not a tragedy when a 97.5-year-old man dies of natural causes. That doesn’t mean that we can’t be sad because I am. I am sad for a million different reasons but the biggest one is that my children won’t ever know grandpa the way that I did. They’ll hear stories about him and grandma. When they get older they’ll have a better appreciation for how incredible it is to be married for 75 years but they won’t know it in the same way that I do.

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One of my strongest memories of my grandparents is of them dancing. I close my eyes and I can see them gliding across the floor together. I close my eyes and hear grandma tell the 13-year-old version of me that if I learn how to dance as well as grandpa I will never lack for a date. I close my eyes and see them in their nineties sitting next to each other in matching recliners. They are both fast asleep but they are holding hands. I close my eyes and hear my grandfather tell me about happy grandma has made him. I hear people asking grandma what their secret is. She laughs, shakes her head and says she doesn’t know. She says that they have always known how to compromise.

Grandpa laughs and tells me that when two people adore each other they find a way to work it out and then he says that it doesn’t hurt to have a hot 85-year-old wife. Grandma blushes smiles broadly and tells him to shush. I think of grandma as being a very proper lady. She doesn’t swear but she doesn’t have to. On the rare occasion she gets upset she has a look that causes plants to wither.

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Grandpa’s death certificate will say something about natural causes and that is ok. But the true cause of death is a broken heart. He missed grandma terribly and even though she was gone he used to talk to her photo. But it would be unfair of me to paint a picture that didn’t describe him as trying to live a vibrant and active life without grandma. She was his best friend but even in her absence, he did what he could to get the most out of his days.

But no matter how fast we run time is always faster and it caught up to him.

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I saw him every day last week and noticed a steady deterioration so I made a point early in the week to tell him that I loved him. Even though he knew it, I wanted to make sure that he heard it. Even though he told me that he was ready and that he wasn’t afraid I wanted to try and ease his burden anyway that I could.

Yesterday afternoon I went back and found him fast asleep. His breathing was labored and you could see that he had to fight for each breath. They had given him some Morphine to make him more comfortable and consequently, he was sort of out it. He stared glassy-eyed at the ceiling and I hoped that it wouldn’t be long. Not because I didn’t love him but because he was very clear about his wishes. He had a DNR and had told us all that if there came a time where he couldn’t function on his own he wanted out.

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“Grandpa, I have to leave,” I said. I bent over and told him again that I loved him and that if he wanted to let go it was ok with me. This time I just couldn’t say goodbye, so instead I said “so long” and walked out of the room. Six hours later he was gone, but in my eyes he died a hero.

A Question of Dignity

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I know happiness and I know heartbreak. Failure has kissed my lips and wrapped its arms around me- but victory hasn’t ever been a stranger to me either. I have a closet full of trophies and more than memories of triumph. I have loved and lost and lived. Take a walk through the stacks here and you’ll find examples of these things. You’ll see the stories that make you laugh and stories that make you feel other things.

Read the archives and you’ll find more than one discussion about the boundaries of blogging. I think about these things for many reasons. I worry about invisible people and wonder about whether we live in a bubble. Really I spend quite a bit of time looking for teaching moments. I do it because two kids and a dog call me dad. I do it because being a parent is a little bit like being on one of those crazy Japanese game shows.

I do it because life consistently presents opportunities that remind me that there are moments where the focus in life is about a question of dignity.
2011-07-31_11-35-10_798
That is a picture of items from our garage sale. An unexpected rainstorm is the reason that the ground is wet and things are tossed about- but that is not what I see or think about. What I see is the homeless guy who is standing off to the right side of the page. I can’t tell you how old he was but I can tell you that he was weathered, dirty and that he looked like hell.

Can’t tell you if he read one of our signs and wandered over looking for stuff or if he just stumbled upon us and I don’t care. What I can tell you is that I sold him a pair of shoes and an old backpack for $1. One of my “customers” yelled at me for charging him for those items. She told me that I was greedy. I told her that it was a question of dignity. He asked me how much it cost. He didn’t ask for me to give it to him. So I charged him a dollar for shoes and a backpack that are worth far more than that to him.

That is one of the lessons that I can attribute to my parents/grandparents. He deserved my respect and that dictated my response.

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It was something that I thought about today. As we stood around my grandfather’s bed I watched my children and gauged their response to what they saw. It is clear to everyone including them that the end is almost here. When I went to see him on Sunday I helped him out of bed so that he could go to the bathroom. What that really means is that I carried him five feet and then held him up so that he could answer nature’s call. I did my best not to make eye contact so that he could maintain some semblance of dignity, but we both knew what was happening.

Later on I found myself thinking about both of my grandfathers and reflecting a bit upon their influence upon my life and who I am. I am not the same man I was when my paternal grandfather died. That is not to say that he wouldn’t recognize me because he would- but life has changed me. If he were here he would tell me that you can only play the hand you are dealt and that you the best you can with that.

I’d smile and say that I do that…every day. I’d tell him that I love him, that I miss him and that I am sorry he can’t see how incredible his great grandchildren are.

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I knew that the kids wouldn’t be up for a long visit so when it became apparent that they were getting squirrely I told them it was time to say goodbye. They walked out of the room and started chasing each other down the hall. Grandpa motioned me to come closer and reached out to hug me. I bent over, kissed his cheek and said “I love you grandpa.” He looked me in the eye and said “I love you too.”

My Children Confront Death Again

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Field of Dreams

Dear children,

It is almost midnight on Tuesday night and I am back at the computer lost in the memories of my past. I went to visit your great-grandfather today and we had a very serious talk about death. He looked me in the eye and told me that he knows that he is dying and I told him that I had heard the rumor. I asked if him if he is afraid or concerned about it and he said no. He is not afraid and he is ready to go.

Tomorrow I’ll take you over to his home to see him so that you can say goodbye. He has been receiving palliative care and tomorrow that changes to hospice care. What that means is that they are going to do some things to make him more comfortable and to prepare for him to leave us. That is a softer way of saying that they are helping him get ready to die.

I don’t know all of the details. I don’t know if they are going to give him a morphine drip or medicate him in a way that will prevent him from communicating with us. But that is what I have seen happen in the past so that is why I want to get there early enough to see him while he is still cognizant of where he is and who is around him.

He told me today that he loves you very much and asked me to tell you stories about him. He made sure to tell me to make sure that I include grandma in those stories. One day when you are much older I will tell you that I think he is dying of a broken heart. It is 18 months since grandma died and he misses her terribly. No one is surprised by this. They were married for 76 years and were friends for close to ten prior to that

My wish for you is that you should know the sort of love that they had for each other and that it be for even longer.

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You may not know this, but most grownups will tell you that you never really outgrow your parents. That doesn’t mean that you will always need their help but chances are you will feel better knowing that they are there…just in case. Today I sat next to grandma and I watched her closely. She is preparing to say goodbye to her daddy and I can see that she is sad. She understands why this is happening and knows that it is part of life, but she is going to miss him.

There were a few times when she held my hand and asked me when her little boy got to be so big. She doesn’t talk like that normally. Ok, when your aunt turned 40 this year she told me that she is not old enough to have a 40-year-old child, let alone several. I of course took the opportunity to tell your aunt that mom thinks she is really old. Sorry, you may call me dad but in the big brother guidelines it states that we are required to tease our little sisters for life.

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It feels very strange to me to think that in a short time all of my grandparents will be gone. They have been a huge part of my life. I can’t think of a time where they weren’t around and now I am on the verge of having…none. One of the things that makes me happy is to see that you are developing the same sort of relationships with your grandparents that I had with mine.

And at the same time I feel sad knowing that none of them will be at your aunt’s wedding. Fact is that no one from that generation will be there. It is less than two weeks now and the docs say that they don’t expect grandpa to live that long. Even if he fools them he won’t be in a position to be there.

One more piece of my childhood is disappearing. I suppose that sounds selfish, but grandpa would appreciate it. Tomorrow you’ll ask me what comes after we die and I expect that you’ll want to know if I think that grandma is waiting to see him. I’ll probably answer by asking what you think.

Me, I am torn. This is all bittersweet for me. I don’t want to let go of my grandpa. It makes me think this:

I guess that it stems in part from some of the last memories I have of grandpa and grandma. They used to sit next to each other and hold hands. Sometimes when grandma would get up and walk away grandpa would tell me that she had a great ass for a senior citizen and then he would laugh. And sometimes that laugh would fade and he’d tell me about how he didn’t see an old woman. He’d tell me that he still saw the girl that he fell in love with. He’d tell me about how she used to jump on his back and he would run and the two of them would laugh.

He’d tell me lots of stories. During the last few years of grandma’s life he would tell me how frustrated he was that he couldn’t pick her up anymore and how it killed him not to be able to care for her the way that he used to.

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I don’t know what happens after we die. I know that 3 out of 4 of my grandparents lived well into their nineties so I hope not to learn for a long time. I know that though it pains me to have to say goodbye to grandpa I am happy that he is at peace with it. I really do hope that he finds grandma waiting for him. He told me that he talks to her everyday and that when he goes to sleep he always tells her that he loves her.

Before I wrap this up I want to share a few more things with you. I am not afraid of death. I don’t want it to come for a long time because I have too much to do and I am determined to see who you become when you grow up. I am determined to help show you that life is meant to be lived and that our job is to suck the marrow out of life.

And if you want to know why I repeat myself here you can attribute it to this:

If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time-a tremendous whack.
– Winston Churchill

I love you,

Dad

It Made Me Cry

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Confession time. Last night I watched part of an Animal Planet show about dogs and started crying. It was unexpected and I was shocked at the feelings it brought out. It happened during the segment on Golden Retrievers. I saw a couple of puppies playing and suddenly I remembered running with the Big Lug and I just felt this giant, gaping hole. He was a mutant Golden, much bigger than the average. Had a massive head and weighed far more but was more loving than a thousand of them.

Maybe it is because we are moving and I remember watching him patrol the house. Maybe it is because he liked to pretend that at more than 100 pounds he could be a lapdog or because my kids rode him like a horse. It shocked me because I don’t cry easily or much at all. I don’t really know.

But I can tell you that last night he visited me in my dreams. We were both young. I was a twenty something year old kid at the park and he was about two. And in that dream we did what we can’t do together any more. We ran. He was always just ahead of me, but never so far that he was out of sight. He was headed towards traffic and I was yelling for him to stop, fearful that he would do something stupid and get hit by a car.

And then a few dogs started barking at me and he was at my side, tail pointed, deep bark warning them to stay away. At the same time I yelled at them too- told him not to worry that I would find a way out of it for us. But mostly I was secure in the knowledge that the big lug had my back because he always did. Who listened better to my stories than he did. He never got tired or them or acted judgmental- he just loved me.
I have been thinking about something Danny wrote and the words I wrote there.

Brevity and I are often at odds so I will try to sum things up as best I can. My last blog post would be similar to this.

“I have lived, loved and laughed more than I have cried and complained. I have friends that I would die for and who die for me.
I am grateful for those who have walked with me on my journey and hope that they have learned from me as I have learned from them.
There will never be enough time for me to see all that I want to see, do all that I want to do and say all that I want to say.

So these few words shall have to suffice. It has been fun.”

I am proud of those words. They have meaning and significance to me. I am proud of them because I do wrestle with brevity and I feel like I captured the essence of the sort of life I want to lead.  But I am unsettled. Been thinking about those words and wondering if I am living up to the things I shared there.

The answer is that I don’t feel like I am holding up my end of the bargain. I feel like most of it is true but I spend too much time complaining. Too much time bitching and moaning about the things that make me unhappy.  Those who know me best will tell you that I am very hard on myself and that I am being unfair about some of this. Some of the challenges are things outside of my control. They tell me that force of will isn’t enough to change things and that beating myself up isn’t going to make it better. They tell me that I need to let some of that go and just wait for things to pass.

Well that is fine and good but it is not my nature. I am filled with fire that is never extinguished. I don’t just let go of the important things….not easily. It happens but I need to work through it all and eventually a stubborn fool like me comes around. But I need time.

Maybe that is why the Big Lug is on my mind. Maybe he came to visit because he knows things. Maybe he came to remind me that though I may not be that twenty something year old kid anymore I still have all of the potential and opportunity to fulfill that he did. Maybe he came to visit because some promises reach beyond.

There is far more that could be said and will be said but it won’t happen here. Some things aren’t meant for all eyes and ears. Suffice it to say that I am thinking of Orpheus in the underworld and the mistakes that he made. When you find yourself wandering through Moriah you don’t go knocking on strange doors. You keep your eyes open and your head down.

Time for that North Star to show up again. But until that happens I’ll keep walking and remember that the Big Lug still walks with me.

Four Generations & A Wedding

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Tuxedo Shirt 6-10-08 -- IMG_0615

Family legend talks about the day my father told me that my mother had given birth to twin sisters. I burst into tears and said that I already had too many sisters and begged him to send them back for a little brother.

Apparently his response has gotten lost in the sands of time but I imagine that it didn’t contain any sort of apology nor should it have. And there you have yet another public acknowledgement that my father was right and I was wrong. Mark it carefully, I don’t like saying such things out loud. It is not because I don’t respect my father because I do. The man deserves far more accolades and compliments than he gets, but the last thing I need is to add fuel to his fire because the men in this family have plenty.

Yesterday we engaged in the ordinary but created some extraordinary out of it. One of the twins is getting married and the menfolk had to get fitted for our tuxedos. So my son and I hopped in the car and headed out to meet my dad and grandfather at the tux shop so that they could tell me to lose some weight measure us for the penguin suits we are going to wear at the wedding.

I am sorry to say that I was slow to recognize the importance of the day. It is fair to say that at the moment life is filled with an extra amount of tumult and turmoil so I have been more focused on trying to sail my ship safely past the rocks and reefs. My bank account is a bit thin so I am loathe to lose a ship as I can’t say when or how I will replace it.

So when my son and I walked in the shop I was far more interested in getting it over with than in enjoying the moment. But seeing my grandfather helped snap me back into place.  He was sitting on his walker lost in thought about time and places long since past or so I imagine. I suspect that what he was thinking about was my grandma. He talks to me about her quite often and I do what I can to listen and help. I don’t think that he is aware of how he cries when he talks about her or how hard it is sometimes is to not be able to do more to ease his pain.

In one capacity or another they were together for 85 years- that truly is a lifetime so there really isn’t much that I can do beyond listen to him speak. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind it. The only thing that bothers me is that I can’t do more to help.

But yesterday I did have one secret weapon, a great-grandson and he is able to bring about a different sort of smile than I can. I like to stand back and watch them interact together. It has been one of the great pleasures and privileges of my life to do so. I have watched my grandparents hold my babies and then watched as the babies grew into little people.

Yesterday as I helped my son into his tuxedo I had a flashback to the last family wedding and that is when it hit me. Eight years ago the 2.5 year old boy who once was told me that he wouldn’t put on his tuxedo. Eight years ago four grandparents walked down the aisle and helped celebrate the wedding of a granddaughter. That 2.5 year old boy only had two first cousins and hadn’t yet learned what it meant to have a little sister.

The coming wedding will still be filled a lot of love, joy and laughter but there is going to be three big holes. Three people who were enormous influences on my siblings and I are gone. It is not unexpected or unusual but I would be lying if I didn’t say that it feel a bit surreal to me.

Yesterday grandpa told me that he is going to tell grandma about the wedding and that he is really looking forward to it and I believe him. But the rules of the blog dictate brutal honesty and that requires that I acknowledge that the light behind his eyes has dimmed a little bit.

We had a few moments alone, grandpa and I and he told me a few more stories about him and grandma. I knew them all but still enjoyed listening to them anyway. Just before he finished speaking he looked at me and told me that grandma really knew how to make him smile. I smiled at him and said that something told me that grandma wouldn’t like him telling those stories about her. He chuckled and and with a smile that kept growing bigger said, “there is a lot that you don’t know about your grandmother.”

I knew better than to ask what that meant, some stories are best left between those who experienced them.

Later on I looked at my son and marveled at how that tuxedo made him look a little bit older and a little bit taller. If I didn’t know better I would say that for a brief moment I was given a glimpse of the man he is going to one day become.Or maybe that was just the overactive imagination of a man who throughout the day kept slipping between grandson, son and father.

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,”

As You Like It- Shakespeare

And Justice For All

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Pete Souza, Official White House Photographer
Pete Souza, Official White House Photographer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tonight my children learned about Osama Bin Laden. Tonight my children learned about 9/11 and the murder of thousands. Tonight they watched the news of Bin Laden’s death alongside me and I cursed him for it. I cursed Bin Laden for the murder of innocents and innocence. I cursed him for forcing my hand and having to take a piece of their childhood away from them.

Because tonight I confirmed that while there are no monsters under their beds or in the closets there are monsters who walk amongst us. My soon to be 10.5 year-old asked me if we murdered a murderer and whether we have to go kill his kids. My almost seven year-old asked why he was so mean and then told me that she wasn’t afraid because daddy will kill bad people. Her older brother nodded his head and smiled at me as he confirmed that she was correct.

And as they broke my heart and warmed my soul with their trust I sat and listened to President Obama and considered what to tell these children of mine. Sat and thought about what to explain and how to explain it. Wondered if I had made a mistake in letting them watch this and realized that I wouldn’t have been happy had I not.

These decisions are hard…so very hard to make. I writeposts about these thoughts to help sort out my feelings and chronicle some of the more important events and moments. These are the days where you remember that there are no hard and fast rules for parenting. These are the moments when I struggle for words that will convey the answers that they need in the most appropriate way. I remember the day that he asked me what a gas chamber was and how I did my best to answer in a way that was appropriate.

I am not a pacifist. I believe that there are times when you must go to war. I believe that when you go to war you unleash hell upon the other side. I believe that it is ok to say that some ideologies are morally superior to others. I believe that the families of “evil” people probably cry when their sons/daughters die just as we do for our own children. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot or should not protect ourselves.

I believe that a smart society educates its citizenry and provides affordable healthcare for them. I believe that smart parents and smart people judge others based upon actions. I don’t believe that the death penalty is always a deterrent nor do I believe that it should be outlawed.

A smart society looks out for all of its citizenry from the weak to the strong. It protects those within its embrace and those without.

I can write on about my beliefs. I can write 10,000 words on why I believe these things. I can cite the Constitution and explain why I believe it is a living document. I can tell you how the Electoral College works and sing along to all sorts of School House Rock Songs about the U.S. government. I can do all this and more but I can’t quite make sense of the senseless.

I can’t tell you that I feel good about speaking with my children about these things or why it is surreal that the news about Bin Laden was released on Holocaust Remembrance Day and that on this day in 1945 they announced that Hitler was dead.

What I can tell you is that as I tried to sort it all out in my head I told my kids that they are safe. I told them that they don’t have to worry about tornadoes here and promised that I would protect them. When my daughter asked me if I would kill bad people who tried to hurt them I said yes. I didn’t engage in a philosophical discussion about whether it is right or wrong. Didn’t tell her that she probably didn’t have to worry about it because it was unlikely to be a problem. I just said yes because I knew that she didn’t need more than that.

And when her older brother told me that he knew that I would say that I smiled and hugged him.

And then I walked out of their room and turned on mindless television for a while. There would be plenty of time to read and watch the news later. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel badly about OBL. Fact is that I hope he suffered. That is not nice nor will it bring back those who died because of him, but it is true.

Now I hope that we can use his death to come together as a country and try to do a better job of fixing what is broken because in my mind that ultimate up yours would be to come back unified and stronger. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.