L I F E - Grampa (2011)

 (Reader’s Digest version - written in 2011, edited in October 2020)

April, 2007. 4 a.m. 

I get home from work. 

I walk by my Grampa's and Gramma's bedroom - dimly lit, with songs of roosters, ranches and horses stream faintly from the TV.

"Mijo?"

"Yes, Grampa?"

"Could you straighten me out here, please?"

"Yes, Grampa"

As the hospice ladies taught me, I stood behind my Grampa, reached under his arms and pulled him up to his slightly elevated position. He didn't like laying down when the bed was straight horizontally. 

.    .    .    .    .  

My Grampa wanted the mariachi channel, on the cable radio station, turned on when he was in bed. When he turned 102 years old, he was ordered to stay in bed; which meant that mariachi songs, sung in Mexican-Spanish, could always be heard from the room where he slept. 

For decades, Grampa insisted on sleeping in the same California king bed he shared with my Gramma, after she passed away. The bed, which could have easily accommodated Chocolate-lover Charlie’s four grandparents, had no guard rails, five blankets, three sheets and comforter - all all of which needed to be washed daily. 

My Grampa, once he was helped out of his diapers, then into his clothes, could drive, walk, watch his great-grandkids play baseball, go to church, even pee without anyone's help. He didn't care for cooking or cleaning the house; for that was women's work. And his woman, the love of his life, my Gramma, had passed almost twenty years before.

.    .    .    .    .  

Since January 2007 - the previous four months - my Grampa, for the first time in his 102 year old life, was forced to stay in his new bed. 

It was a reclinable bed, with guard rails. Grampa now had have his diaper changed three times a day - once during the day by a hospice nurse, once at bed time and once early in morning; preferably by someone he lived with, like a roommate. Or anyone, really, that was willing to do such a thing. Someone he taught how to play baseball, pull weeds and swing hammer.

So, I changed my Grampa’s diapers. 

I used to help Grampa get into his morning pull-over Huggies for a few of years. But now I had to make sure he was all clean and dry and, in this instance, on this early morning, comfortable and not alone.

I didn’t want my Mom or Dad or anyone else to find my Grampa when he died but me. 

Only I had seen him in a way he never wanted to be seen. I didn’t want my nephews, nieces or even my siblings to be the one to find him that way. I know for sure that those, who lived across the driveway, that were from my Gramma’s side of the family, wouldn't find him unless I was dead first.

I wanted to be the one to find him dead because I believed that I made the last years of his life more joyful than just merely bearable. I fought with him the first three days he was bed-ridden, I laughed with him each time he made ca-ca jokes every day after those first three days. 

I knew that if I were to find my Grampa after he passed, no one else would have to endure the shock or trauma of finding him dead. 

If anyone else, besides me, found him, they would always remember him dead, not like the way he was when he was alive; always laughing and dancing. 

If I found him dead, I would have seen him resting. He did what he wanted, when he wanted.

After I made sure my Grampa was comfortable, he said:

Thank you Mijo. God bless you. 

Like always.

(written in 2011)