It's About Seeing the Rising Moon

My grandfather passed away last Sunday, December 18, 2011, following an excruciating hospital visit that lasted over a week. I visited him for a couple of days while he was there, a ventilator and everywhere tubes invading his body as he stressed under the pressure of pneumonia. He would occasionally awaken, and I wondered how much he comprehended when he looked at us through those dreary eyes, glassy from the medication. He seemed to respond to questions fairly well. In any case, I can never be sure, but I hope that he was aware that I was there with him, even if just for a little while, as he lay dying in the sterile, florescent-lit hospital. I hope that he saw me when I bent over him as he temporarily woke last Wednesday, a week prior to his funeral, and said that I was leaving to go back to work, but that I would be back as soon as I could and that I loved him. I watched his eyes slowly panned toward mine, the corners wet and crusting, the blue tubes forcing his mouth uncomfortably open, and he nodded his head. The lids of his eyes fluttered shut as he fell back into a medicated slumber. I felt a bitterness in my heart. After 36 hours of wakefulness and worry fueled by adrenaline and anxiety, an eight-hour nap, and then more wakefulness and worry, I felt like I was abandoning him. I wished I could replace the ventilator tube jammed down his throat with a more soothing pipe tobacco that he once so loved to smoke. I wished I could replace the sound of whirring and beeping machines with the music of his favorite singers, like Dorris Day. I wished I could replace the stiff hospital bed that he had to be assisted by two nurses to maneuver in with his favorite recliner. I was angry that he couldn't enjoy his time, surely the last of his days alive. I was scared that this would be the final interaction that I would have with him, the slow nod of his head, which I am still unsure if he was totally aware of my presence.

I packed my things to leave to his side again on the weekend. My mother had been texting me continually with how his health was progressing or regressing. Things were looking alright. Not good, but not necessarily much worse than when I left him. And then I received a text that said he was having irregular heartbeats. Then a simple message: "Dad is passing." Early the following morning, "Dad just left us."

As though he was only out to pick up a gallon of milk. As though he was just out to grab a bite to eat. As though he was expected to return. He just left. He left.

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I read a Time magazine article today, dated from 1990. The author, Pico Iyer, tells of the time when his house burned down in California. The story's kicker states: "My only solace came from the final irony. In the manuscript I had saved, I had quoted the poem of the 17th century Japanese wanderer Basho, describing how destruction can sometimes bring a kind of clarity:

My house burned down / Now I can better see / The rising moon."