I drove up north about an hour to see him in the hospital with my cousin and uncle. He looked pretty bad- alarmingly so. I hadn't seen him so sick, and it was a shock. He was all drugged up and feeling rotten and skinny and small in the big bed. It's hard to know what to say, because "how are you feeling" is salt in the wound and it's hard to think about anything else. We didn't hang out long, because attention spans are significantly shortened by pain and morphine, and on our way out of the room, he said "Donald Trump is on the phone." I smiled and nodded, not knowing what to make of it, not wanting to think about it too much because I don't know that I'd want what I'd make of it if I did. My cousin said, "No, look at the TV. It says Donald Trump is on the phone scrolling across the bottom." And I realized that he was making a joke. I laughed, said "I love you" and "Bye."
++++++
Things aren't ever simple. I've had this conversation with a number of people in a variety of contexts, but I think that this is one of the things that makes life and living so phenomenally beautiful. And even when they are simple they don't exist in a vacuum, and they are hopelessly intertwined with something essentially messy or confusing or inconvenient, so they're not really simple anymore. I've been feeling lately that worlds are colliding, but it doesn't look or feel like the big bang (as I imagine it), or like the parts of "Fantasia" that are all dark and color smashing into each other with dramatic music and cymbals* and fear and exploding light. It's more like fumbling or rolling or floating around in the dark, bobbing along without direction and then bumping into something soft and warm with enough force and surprise that out comes an inadvertent grunt, an "Oof." What was that? And then things move along, mostly like before, but there's some shame or embarrassment about the collision, and nothing and no-one is quite sure what just happened, of if it will happen again.
++++++
My grandpa died the other day, in what can only be considered a whirlwind of insanity and calm and coming together and missing each other and talking and turning inward and reflection and confusion and grounding and feeling lost and really, who knows? We went out to dinner to celebrate him the day after, because it's what he wanted, and he didn't want anything else. We went around the table, a long one with family flown in from the east coast and the up north a ways and down south a long ways, and told stories about him. There was no need to innumerate the conflicts and breaks in communication or love or the anger and hurt that we all knew existed, and will live on in ways we can't control. We all knew that was there, but it wasn't time to air that. We were remembering our grandfather and our father, and with no pretense of covering up the dark or repainting the past, we shared.
They were all great stories, from all different parts of his life as well as ours. One of the ones that stood out was a story told by my uncle from when he was about 9, his brother a few years younger, and my mom about 2. It was on a camping trip, my uncle explained, that lasted the whole summer. The family went out in the family car and camped all over the country. One evening in Yellowstone National Park, a dinner of sandwiches and such was laid out for the five of them to eat on the tailgate of the truck. Maybe left out too long, or maybe not, the dinner attracted a bear who began to help him or herself to the meal. My grandpa, furious at the intrusion, grabbed a pot and went to town, whacking the bear away from the meal. These were days when we knew less about preservation, conservation, and bear safety. Apparently. Those of us who'd never heard the story before were slack-jawed; three tiny kids and his wife feet away and he's going head-to-head with a bear? He drove the bear away apparently. My other uncle added, "I remember it a little differently. I remember him getting in the front of the car and shoving the bear in the face with a broom while a neighboring camper shouted 'Wait! I'm going to get my camera!'" They noticed a yellow spot of paint on the bear's head (anyone else see where this is going?) and asked a park ranger on their way out of the park, how the bear's head came to be so marked. The parks had a system, explained the ranger, of marking and relocating bears that had attacked humans. They captured the bear in question, marked its head with a spot of yellow paint, and moved it far away from where humans might encounter it. Oh gosh. Defending life and dinner from a savage bear, a known enemy to humans? My grandpa was a damn superhero.
*Gosh, I'm the worst. I started out with this saying "symbols." Thank goodness I caught it, right? Like the time at camp when I thought I used the word "signet" when playing Contact with campers and staff on a hike. It was my mistake, because one of the kids guessed the other kind of signet, the kind that is a symbol (as on a ring or a necklace) and I had to give it up because even though he guessed a different word, it was kind of the same word. As I explained that I was thinking of the baby swan signet, my fellow counselor called me out and informed us all that the signet that I was thinking of was in fact spelled cygnet, like the constellation Cygnus, and that I was a dumb-face. He didn't say that, but we all knew it.
++++++
Things aren't ever simple. I've had this conversation with a number of people in a variety of contexts, but I think that this is one of the things that makes life and living so phenomenally beautiful. And even when they are simple they don't exist in a vacuum, and they are hopelessly intertwined with something essentially messy or confusing or inconvenient, so they're not really simple anymore. I've been feeling lately that worlds are colliding, but it doesn't look or feel like the big bang (as I imagine it), or like the parts of "Fantasia" that are all dark and color smashing into each other with dramatic music and cymbals* and fear and exploding light. It's more like fumbling or rolling or floating around in the dark, bobbing along without direction and then bumping into something soft and warm with enough force and surprise that out comes an inadvertent grunt, an "Oof." What was that? And then things move along, mostly like before, but there's some shame or embarrassment about the collision, and nothing and no-one is quite sure what just happened, of if it will happen again.
++++++
My grandpa died the other day, in what can only be considered a whirlwind of insanity and calm and coming together and missing each other and talking and turning inward and reflection and confusion and grounding and feeling lost and really, who knows? We went out to dinner to celebrate him the day after, because it's what he wanted, and he didn't want anything else. We went around the table, a long one with family flown in from the east coast and the up north a ways and down south a long ways, and told stories about him. There was no need to innumerate the conflicts and breaks in communication or love or the anger and hurt that we all knew existed, and will live on in ways we can't control. We all knew that was there, but it wasn't time to air that. We were remembering our grandfather and our father, and with no pretense of covering up the dark or repainting the past, we shared.
They were all great stories, from all different parts of his life as well as ours. One of the ones that stood out was a story told by my uncle from when he was about 9, his brother a few years younger, and my mom about 2. It was on a camping trip, my uncle explained, that lasted the whole summer. The family went out in the family car and camped all over the country. One evening in Yellowstone National Park, a dinner of sandwiches and such was laid out for the five of them to eat on the tailgate of the truck. Maybe left out too long, or maybe not, the dinner attracted a bear who began to help him or herself to the meal. My grandpa, furious at the intrusion, grabbed a pot and went to town, whacking the bear away from the meal. These were days when we knew less about preservation, conservation, and bear safety. Apparently. Those of us who'd never heard the story before were slack-jawed; three tiny kids and his wife feet away and he's going head-to-head with a bear? He drove the bear away apparently. My other uncle added, "I remember it a little differently. I remember him getting in the front of the car and shoving the bear in the face with a broom while a neighboring camper shouted 'Wait! I'm going to get my camera!'" They noticed a yellow spot of paint on the bear's head (anyone else see where this is going?) and asked a park ranger on their way out of the park, how the bear's head came to be so marked. The parks had a system, explained the ranger, of marking and relocating bears that had attacked humans. They captured the bear in question, marked its head with a spot of yellow paint, and moved it far away from where humans might encounter it. Oh gosh. Defending life and dinner from a savage bear, a known enemy to humans? My grandpa was a damn superhero.
*Gosh, I'm the worst. I started out with this saying "symbols." Thank goodness I caught it, right? Like the time at camp when I thought I used the word "signet" when playing Contact with campers and staff on a hike. It was my mistake, because one of the kids guessed the other kind of signet, the kind that is a symbol (as on a ring or a necklace) and I had to give it up because even though he guessed a different word, it was kind of the same word. As I explained that I was thinking of the baby swan signet, my fellow counselor called me out and informed us all that the signet that I was thinking of was in fact spelled cygnet, like the constellation Cygnus, and that I was a dumb-face. He didn't say that, but we all knew it.
