I will Probably Never See Him Again

No fun facts this week, just Tea & musings about complex grandparents

Context for why this post exists

Tiptoeing and side-stepping was the preferred method for living amongst my grandparents. My grandma was the gentlest soul on earth with major depression. My grandpa is a complicated cocktail of ego and “another time”.

This, is about him. He was a cold and unkind roommate. Always yelling at the TV; and if not at it, then us. As he aged, this yelling wasn’t towards anything at all except the concept of time. He worshipped my brother and dad. He, really, really didn’t seem to like me. Or my mom, his actual daughter. Read into that what you will.~

In the past couple of years, his health has majorly declined. Which is valid, he is ninety-two. When home care became too much for my parents and brother, the entire extended family made the difficult decision to move him to a care home on hospice. They found the best one they could, they made sure he was informed and consenting every step of the way, they made sure he was visited and provided for and medicated properly.

My cousins in Colorado are moving him up there on Thursday (tomorrow, as of writing this), to be in another hospice care center, in a change of scenery. When told that he would be moving states away, he was elated. As a follow up, he was asked if he would miss anything about home. And he said,

“No.”

Like, no, he wouldn’t miss my mother who had been his caretaker since my twenty-seven-year-old brother was born. No, he wouldn’t care that said brother or Elyse may never be seen again.

And it’s easy, it’s real f*ckin easy, to harbor Rage Incarnate towards him for being so dense as to not see the unfathomable depths of my family’s love exhibited; what was sacrificed to be near him, to be available, to be unbothered by his remarks.

But I’m heckled nightly, nightmarishly, by the fact that,

This Doesn’t Make Him A Villain.

When I was a toddler I vividly recall the two of us seated at the kitchen table, me cackling my evil little head off as I made him wear all of the jewelry in Pretty Pretty Princess.

He was a surgeon for many years. I, truly cannot remember what kind, but I recall it being related to ski accidents. He would talk a lot about ski accidents. He volunteered weekly, up until last week, at a homeless shelter with the sense of duty of a salaried employee.

I am lead to believe he is/was a practical-minded man who’s empathy showed in the form of actionable steps: he was exceptional at fixing problems one could outwardly see. When I had a huge medical emergency a couple years ago, and came back from the hospital in hysterics about health anxiety, he used his weird medical knowledge to quell my fears. He did that well.

He’s a writer.

He wrote and self-published a book right around the time I was born, chronicling his work as a resident surgeon abroad. In that book, when he returns home, there’s this quote:

“Little Elyse, barely two, held in her brother’s arms, peeks shyly over his shoulder at me. She waves and I wave back.”

When his wife died (Depression Grandma^TM) he would take his rickety golf cart to the riverside behind our house and sit for hours in the shade of the trees, writing on blank sheets of cardstock, filling hundreds of them with cursive ink and his life story. Mirroring me, back in the house, sitting at my bedroom window, who at the time was writing Average Folks season 1.

He would store the pages loose in a plastic bag, setting it on his side table in the living room next to that one paper towel that he refused to throw away and just kept, reusing–WHY!–I digress. I don’t know what he was writing. When he dies, I want to find it. And I want to read it. (He’s got dementia so I’m not sure how much of it is based off real events, but I think that adds to the pleasant mystery awaiting me)

And I get it.

His wife, the only person he seemed to feel understood by, died. He has this big family of over fifty of people, and he’s only ever around ten of them. It makes sense that he’s elated by a new adventure. Especially in his hospice years.

He’s allowed to want to move to Colorado. And my family is allowed relief in passing on the torch of his care.

Pretty & Ugly

It is difficult to hold mercy for someone who has such incredible disregard for their role in hurting you and the people you love. In hurting them, shaping them. In shaping them, threatening to continue your cycles of toxicity and abuse.

I’m navigating two grief cycles: one, losing him. Two, losing the opportunity for him to understand the consequences of his actions.

I have no answers or clarity; just a push and pull within me, allotting space for both things –the pretty and ugly ones– to be true. Accepting the discomfort of humanity. Inching towards forgiveness, whatever that may look like in the end.

So here’s to our few good memories, Art. Here’s to not knowing if/when we will see each other again. I hope so? I don’t hope so? I’m truly unsure. But thank you for fueling my art. And thank you for building my family, I love them dearly.

A part of me loves you too.

~

(Ew! Intimacy! Fun update though, I’m 82,000 words into my WIP, and am nervous and excited by the prospect of finishing my first draft of my first book by Easter. Next week’s post will probably be about that. Unless something else happens hahahaha. ❤)