I spent the day mindlessly doing things to keep myself occupied.
My Mom and Dad came home so my Dad could finally get some rest, and I cooked dinner for them.
I wrestled with the idea of going to see my grandfather. I had no idea what he would be like, or how difficult it would be. I really had no idea what condition he was in, my parents took phone calls privately to keep details from me. I overheard my mother saying that when they were moving my grandfather to hospice care, they weren’t sure he’d even make it there.
I sat around as my father slept, and my mother paced the floor.
I made myself dinner and upon getting lost in my thoughts, started sobbing. My mother walked over and wrapped her arm around me and we both just sobbed. I think it’s the first time I’ve cried around my family in my adult life.
I finally built up enough strength to get in the car and go to the hospital. With each step through the hallways, my heart was breaking. This is real.
My grandmother was asleep on a cot next to his hospital bed. And there was my grandfather, lying in this giant hospital bed which made him look all the more frail and delicate. He was asleep, wearing an oxygen mask and that icky crust of sleep and tears coated his eyelashes. The mechanized whirring of an oxygen pump was almost as loud as his gasps for breath, mixed with the whimpers and muffled cries of pain.
My heart broke.
I was too scared to touch him, or to wake him up. I just sat there and watched his chest slowly rise and fall, working so hard to keep him alive. He had always been thin, but he simply looked skeletal at this point, and his ample hospital gown fell down around his chest displaying the fact that every bone in his rib cage was clearly visible.
A while later my Aunt and Uncle arrived, and hellos were exchanged. My father began to cry, and being unable to look, I slipped out into the hallway. Glances into the room revealed my uncle at my grandfather’s side, holding his hand, whispering to him, fixing his hair.
Composure returned, and I went back into the crowded room which was unnervingly silent. Granddaddy woke up, and said hello to my Uncle and my Dad. He sat for a while, caught a glimpse of me through heavily lidded eyes and slowly held out his bony arm to extend a pallid hand in my direction. This was almost more than I could take. I went to his side, took his hand in mine as he squeezed it tight. Tears rolled down his face as he asked what I had done today. His speech was so strained and muffled I could barely make out his words, but I smiled and told him I hadn’t done a thing when in fact I had spent the entire day thinking only of him. I told him I loved him, and he told me he loved me too. His eyes began drooping, and he fell back into unconciousness. I stayed next to him, holding his hand. His skin felt almost paper thin against my own.
Words I exchanged with everyone else are lost to me now. All I can remember are the looks upon everyone’s faces, all the puffy reddened eyes, and drooping eyelids from lack of sleep. My grandmother called me a funny name which made no sense to me, but I hugged her anyway. Granddaddy woke up periodically, asking if he was worse this time than the last and grandmother told him that he was. I had to leave the room again. I paced the halls, exchanging forced smiles with the other families visiting their loved ones.
Everything was too surreal. The man in that bed seemed to only be a shell of the man I had known my entire life. Yes, he was still there, but he was so broken I could hardly take it. I remember the way he always made me laugh, how he’d jokingly threaten me with his cane when I was being too rowdy, and how he seemed far too bony when I’d sit in his lap as a child. He always had a wonderful collection of newsboy caps that I loved to wear, and nice button-up cardigans. I remember him falling asleep at his desk, and his head drooped to such a severe level that from behind he appeared to be headless. We would always watch The Price Is Right at 11 o’clock as we ate an early lunch of sandwiches on super-grainy wheat bread that grandma always insisted on buying. I remember how his office always smelled of eraser rubbings and how he’d teach me to precisely draw blueprints (although mine were never quite as precise as his). I remember laughing with him at photos of his 70’s-era mutton chops and how they made him look extremely Wolverine-like, and how his breath constantly smelled of coffee (at one point I wasn’t sure that he drank anything else. I was sure that I had never met another person who drank as much coffee as he did; decaf at that).
I couldn’t stay at the hospital any longer. I took his hand and told him how much I loved him and that I’d see him tomorrow. He agreed that I would see him then.

Tomorrow is another day.