My Pappy, My Hero

2017 was one of the worst years of my life. It started with me reeling from the losses of one of my paternal uncles and my paternal grandfather, who had passed four weeks apart in November and December. Throughout the year I left an unhealthy relationship and moved into an apartment I couldn't afford because I was working at a daycare and making $12 an hour. I was getting calls from collections agencies because I couldn't make credit card payments. My bank account was overdrafted on a weekly basis just from trying to pay my bills. Needless to say, it was taking a huge toll on me.

While all of this was going on, my maternal grandfather was battling cancer at 84. He could barely withstand the chemotherapy treatments and his age was starting to affect his memory. At the time, he was living in an apartment by himself and my family was always having to check on him. I remember visiting him one day for about an hour, and the entire time he had the tea kettle on the stove boiling water. I reminded him to turn off the burner at least four times, but when I left it was still on. He flooded his kitchen twice because he turned the sink on and left the room, forgetting that the water was running. Once he fell in the shower at 10pm and didn't press his LifeAlert button until nearly 6am, because he "didn't want to bother anybody." The man who had spent my entire life headstrong and independent was barely able to make it through a day on his own, and it broke my heart to watch.

In May, he was declared in remission from his cancer. It was one of the happiest and most relieving days. It was short lived, though, as the cancer would return in the fall. At that time, he was sent to a rehab center due to some mobility issues with his legs. Not long after arriving at the rehab center, their staff told my family that there wasn't much they could do to rehabilitate him. We made the unbearably difficult decision to just let him stay comfortable until it was his time.

He ended up staying there for about six weeks. We visited him every day, taking shifts if we could, so he would be alone as little as possible. On one day, I visited him alone during sundown, and I had to watch as he went from being my grandpa to being a confused version of him that I didn't know. He kept insisting that he was home and he wanted to go upstairs to bed. It broke my heart having to tell him that, unfortunately, this was his home now. He got a little short with me, which was very uncharacteristic of my grandpa. He would have never raised his voice or been intentionally short to one of his "grandbabies," unless there was a damn good reason. Shortly after this, I told him I had to go and that I'd be back soon. I cried the whole way home. It still haunts me, thinking of how different he was at the end. My entire life, he had been this incredibly sharp, clever, loving man. He always went out of his way to check on his babies and "grandbabies" - I think a lot about how, if he were still here today, he would have completely ignored social distancing to come and visit all of us to make sure we were okay.

Those weeks he was in the rehab center were the slowest of my entire life. It felt like we were stuck hanging in limbo, just waiting to get the dreaded call. Anytime my phone went off or the phone rang at work, my heart sank. In a way, I was just ready for it to be over. I didn't want to lose him, but by that point, his condition and my own mental state had deteriorated so severely that I hardly recognized either of us.

November 17, 2017. 5:36am. My phone rang. It was my sister. I picked up and in a half-conscious mumble I asked, "is this it?" She told me that around 4:15am, the hospice nurse had come to check on him. She readjusted him in bed and said , "all right, Don, you're all set!" He took one last deep breath in and that was it. Peaceful and quiet. I jumped out of bed, stumbled into my car, and drove to my parents house. I distinctly remember driving down my street and just screaming. I contemplated crashing my car. My heart couldn't take any more pain. Now here I was, 25 and grandparent-less. The man I'd just lost was the grandparent I was closest to.

The weeks and months following his passing were some of the darkest of my entire life. I was genuinely suicidal for the first time in my life. Nothing was going the way I'd hoped. I nearly gave up so many times. But I didn't.

For my 26th birthday, I had planned a big tattoo for myself, complete with lyrics to a song titled "26" that I felt were fitting for me. In addition, I asked my artist to add another piece of art to my body: my grandfather's handwriting. From the last birthday card I got from him.

My grandpa was never big on tattoos, but I've always believed that he would appreciate my little tribute to him. Anytime I'm having a bad day, I just look at my wrist and know that he's with me still.