A few thoughts about April 6, 2020 through April 6, 2021.
Sometimes when I think of Grandma's struggles the last few years I remember her sitting in her wooden rocking chair at home, she knew her mind and body were failing, and as she gently rocked she twirled her finger to the sky and said, “I'm ready to… check out.”
And so on January 20th, Grandma checked out. She was ready. I was not.
The last of my grandparents. She wasn't in great shape and may not have had much time left, but the official cause of death - COVID-19. Ugh.
Grandad died one year ago today. Looking back I wonder if Grandad had COVID too. He faded fast. And it was in his lungs. I can picture him in the hospital bed in their room, but what sticks with me most is the sound of his breathing. A gurgling sound emanating from deep in his lungs. The sound of a fast approaching end.
I sure do miss them both. I'd love to ask Grandad one more thing about growing up on the farm. Joke with him about taking a bath in the creek. About his brothers. About what kind of cigarettes he smoked when he was in the Marines. About when he quit smoking. About working at the steel mill.
Or Grandma about nursing. About the head nurse who handled a drunk patient. About her dad. About playing the mellophone. About her grandparent's house in Tennessee. About how the two of them met.
Sometimes I knew the answers, but it was always worth asking and hearing the stories again.
Grandad had eight brothers. I'm not sure who was in the car and they got a flat tire. Maybe it was Uncle Frank that said, “Son, I'd love to help, but I'm wearing a white shirt.”
Turn left out of my grandparent's old driveway, drive 2.2 miles north, then turn left into the assisted living facility parking lot. A measly 2.2 miles, but it may as well have been on Mars.
They didn't like it there. No one liked them being there. But what can you do?
I recently read Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. It made me think a lot of Grandma when she said, “Being here hurts worse than any fall.”
They might have called the service they provided assisted living, but no one seemed to think it was their job to actually assist him with living—to figure out how to sustain the connections and joys that most mattered to him. Their attitude seemed to result from incomprehension rather than cruelty, but, as Tolstoy would have said, what’s the difference in the end?
As far as places like that go, where they lived was pretty good. But you're still told what time to eat. And what time to take your pills. A “rigid schedule of institutional life.” Some people might like that. Grandma and Grandad did not.
The sociologist Erving Goffman noted the likeness between prisons and nursing homes half a century ago in his book Asylums.
Is someone who refuses regular housekeeping, smokes cigarettes, and eats candies that cause a diabetic crisis requiring a trip to the hospital someone who is a victim of neglect or an archetype of freedom?
They didn't smoke and there were no diabetic crises, but the answer is clear.
I looked back at my phone records. I called Grandma on July 16, 2020.
“Hi Grandma.”
“Well, hi Nick!”
The last few years I always wondered after talking to Grandma if that would be the last time she remembered me. I called her after that and we visited in person too, sometimes actually sitting next to her, other times waving to her through the window.
She is leaving us, not all at once, which would be painful enough, but in a wrenching succession of separations. One moment she is here, and then she is gone again, and each journey takes her a little farther from our reach.
I slightly modified that quote from A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age. It really resonated with me when I read it. Still does.
That July phone call was it - the last time she remembered me. She always smiled and said it was good to see me. Sometimes she would tell me I looked familiar. But she wouldn't remember me again.
My step-grandpa, Eugene Ezell died on July 8th. He was a good man. One of the best.
He was born in Mississippi in 1923. His mother died when he was just over a month old. From my understanding it was from complications of his birth. He joined the Civilian Conservation Corps when he was, I believe, 16.
He joined the Marine Corps in May 1941, just shy of his 18th birthday. He was at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, and Tinian. Spent close to 30 years in the Marine Corps. Lost his first wife in 1995 and then married my grandma in 2001.
He and my grandma would regularly make the 500 mile drive to visit us (along with my cousins and aunt and uncle) in Virginia. They were in their 80s and I am incredibly thankful for those times together. I was fortunate enough to be able to go with Gene and my uncle to the WWII Memorial dedication in 2004.
A few years ago he fell and cut his finger. My dad took him to the ER because the bleeding wouldn't stop. “Just cut it off, I don't need it anyway.”
They were doing some exercises at the assisted living facility and, according to my dad, he grumbled that what they were doing wasn't much so he got down and did some push-ups.
He's another that hated living in a place like that. He always called in the “holding pen.”
Once you go there, you're just waiting to die.
On Sunday, July 4th they let us in one at a time to say our goodbyes. He wasn't responsive. I told him how much I appreciated him. He did a lot for all of us. I miss asking him if there was anything good in the local paper (the “scandal sheet” as he called it), about politics, or about his step-son, Jack.
He could barely hear anymore and you had to practically yell to talk, even when sitting just a few feet away, but he always seemed to enjoy the conversation. I did too. I miss that old Marine.
His dog up and died
He up and died
After twenty years he still grieves
Our cat, Winks, didn't “up and die.” My wife and I took her to the vet on Saturday, October 24th, she was curled up in my lap, and he gave her two shots. The first to sedate her, the second to stop her heart. My wife and I made that decision together. And it was the hardest decision I have ever been a part of.
Jerry Jeff Walker died the day before, so I listened to the song Mr. Bojangles. I had never really listened to the lyrics before or, if I had, had forgotten them. I think it would have been easier if Winks had “up and died” in her hammock at home.
She was 19 and really struggling. My brain said taking her to the vet was the right thing to do. My heart disagreed.
She was a good cat. I miss my work buddy coming to the basement to lay on my lap or sit on the desk. I miss her curling up next to me on the couch and resting her chin on my arm.
As she got older it was harder for her to make it up and down the stairs, so sometimes she would wait for a ride. I miss slinging her over my shoulder and carrying her up and down the stairs. As soon as I would pick her up she would start to purr.
A week after my wife and I were married we moved to Virginia and two days later we got Winks. We had looked online and decided that we would take a kitten named Whitney home, but when we got to the rescue place this little cat they called Dakota wouldn't leave me alone.
We didn't pick her. She picked us.
I wrote about Mom here right after she died (and then added this later).
Easter was two days ago and for the first time in a long time we had a family gathering. One of the hardest things is knowing how close the vaccines were. She would have got the second round of the vaccine weeks ago.
There are a lot of things that make me think of my mom. Baseball season just started and the Reds are 3-1. I spread some wildflower seeds in the backyard. We have some bulbs that are blooming.
We bought a monarch butterfly sign that was going to be a Christmas gift. We should have given it to her when we bought it instead of waiting.
I was really wishing I could call her recently. Calls with my mom were often filled with awkward silence, but I wish I could give her a call and just talk about random things.
The part that still hurts the worst, and I suspect will always hurt the worst, is knowing the kids can't spend more time with her.
Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.
Grandad was 96, Gene was 97, Grandma was 94. On the whole I would say they lived good, long lives. I don't know how they would have viewed their last years being in the “holding pen.” Not being able to spend time with them was tough. Mom was just 65. We didn't spend that much time with her most of the last year either because we were being careful. Four people I said bye to, unable to respond, with only days or hours of life left in their bodies. A total of maybe 35 people between the four funerals. Funerals are more for the living than the dead, but they all deserved more than they got.
What a year. I hope to never have another like it.