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My grandpa is in intensive care. They don’t know what’s wrong; the doctors can’t make his bleeding stop. He’s had four pints’ worth of blood transfusions.
He’s old, yes, he’s 81 or 82. He’s been ill for a while, including a heart attack or something that required surgery a few years ago. (Since then he’s been on some kind of blood thinning medication, which of course is worsening the problems he’s having now.) Still, this is never good.
We’ve been losing him by inches for years thanks to dementia which has been much slower-moving than expected, but still making its presence known increasingly as time goes by. Yet this is another thing; this is what makes my heart drop into my stomach when I’m on the phone and start to think about whether or not I can afford a plane ticket...
Times like this are the worst to be so far away. I know I couldn’t miraculously fix everything but I could at least let him hear my voice; I could give my mom a hug (not to mention my mere presence giving her something to be a bit more cheerful about).
Walking to work the next morning I got a bit teary... not even so much for an old frail man in a hospital gown as much for things already lost to the real world, already existing only in my memories: always running the motor on the little boat when we go fishing, the big deal he makes of Christmas Eve pretending to be Santa and handing out the presents under the tree every year, cooking hot dogs and hamburgers on the little grill in his backyard, watching him play wrestle with my brother, listening to him mutter and swear over the Twins games on the radio (to this day the voice of John Gordon, the Twins’ radio announcer, makes me think of my grandpa).
All good people (and like the rest of us he’s only good sometimes) leave trails like this behind them: often mundane things made sweet by fond remembrance, things that Joni Mitchell’s right about; we almost never know what we’ve got ‘til it’s gone.
Yeah, well I know. And it damn well better not be gone just yet.
He’s old, yes, he’s 81 or 82. He’s been ill for a while, including a heart attack or something that required surgery a few years ago. (Since then he’s been on some kind of blood thinning medication, which of course is worsening the problems he’s having now.) Still, this is never good.
We’ve been losing him by inches for years thanks to dementia which has been much slower-moving than expected, but still making its presence known increasingly as time goes by. Yet this is another thing; this is what makes my heart drop into my stomach when I’m on the phone and start to think about whether or not I can afford a plane ticket...
Times like this are the worst to be so far away. I know I couldn’t miraculously fix everything but I could at least let him hear my voice; I could give my mom a hug (not to mention my mere presence giving her something to be a bit more cheerful about).
Walking to work the next morning I got a bit teary... not even so much for an old frail man in a hospital gown as much for things already lost to the real world, already existing only in my memories: always running the motor on the little boat when we go fishing, the big deal he makes of Christmas Eve pretending to be Santa and handing out the presents under the tree every year, cooking hot dogs and hamburgers on the little grill in his backyard, watching him play wrestle with my brother, listening to him mutter and swear over the Twins games on the radio (to this day the voice of John Gordon, the Twins’ radio announcer, makes me think of my grandpa).
All good people (and like the rest of us he’s only good sometimes) leave trails like this behind them: often mundane things made sweet by fond remembrance, things that Joni Mitchell’s right about; we almost never know what we’ve got ‘til it’s gone.
Yeah, well I know. And it damn well better not be gone just yet.