To-Do: Visit Home (Part II)

When dad and I made the decision to drive to Albuquerque, they had just put my grandpa on hospice.  He lasted about 15 minutes in the hospice unit at the hospital before he cracked and told everyone that if he was going to die, he was going to do it where he was happiest and that wasn't a hospital.  My family took him home, as he requested.

We left Texas on the 7th of July, not knowing when we would return.  Everything was dependent upon the state of my grandpa and the rest of the family upon our arrival.

The drive there was great.  We made good time, listened to good music (Adele happened to be performing at the iTunes Music Festival in London and we listened LIVE) and had great conversation.  These things are nothing out of the ordinary when my dad and I get together.  I've always been a daddy's girl.

About 11½ hours into our trip, my dad talks to me about what to expect.  You see, dad had been driving back and fourth every week for the past three.  He knew what to expect. 

We arrived and I finally got to see my family.  I had been dreading it, on the one hand, because I knew I didn't want to remember my grandpa looking so sick, but I was thrilled on the other.  It had been almost exactly one year (I was home July 11, 2010) since I had seen them.

We walked into my grandparents two bedroom apartment and it was completely transformed.  There was no longer any furniture in the living room.  The entire room was transformed into his very own hospice unit.

I all but ran to the side of his bed.  My grandpa was lying there.  Practically skin and bones, but he was there!  I hugged him as hard as I could and told him I loved him.  His eyes swelled up when he saw me.  I'm not sure if he really knew I would be there.  He held my hand in one of his and my face in his other.  He told me how beautiful I was and how much he loved me.  It took every fiber of my being to not have a loud crying outburst, but I knew I needed to hold it back.  I sat with him and talked for a while.  He asked about My Husband and McKenna.  He wanted to know if they were coming too.  He asked about my mom and sister.  Then he fell asleep so I went and visited with everyone else.

Since it was late, dad and I left there and went to my uncle's house in the mountains.  We stayed up until after 1:00 in the morning talking about everything.  We drank whiskey and just talked.  Things that mattered and things that didn't.  

For the next six days, dad and I would show up at my grandparent's apartment in the morning and stay until dark.  My aunt and her husband took care of my grandpa in the evenings and dad and I were on duty during the day.  Grandpa was never, EVER alone.  There was someone sitting in a chair at his feet 24 hours a day. When I wasn't sitting in the chair with him while he slept, I was on what I like to call Grandma Duty.  Someone was with her 24 hours a day also.  I can think of one time she left by herself and it was to get her hair done.  She refused my company.

I would clean up after people ate, I would make sandwiches for lunch, warm up leftovers for dinner, wash, rinse, repeat.

On the seventh day, Thursday, July 14th, I noticed things had taken a sharp turn.  Grandpa was sleeping more and more.  I would say he was eating less too, but he quit eating long before we got there on the 7th.  His intake was practically nothing.  

When I first got there, he was sleeping and when he woke up and started to stir, I got up from the chair and walked to his bedside.  I grabbed his hand and looked into his eyes to tell him good morning.  It was what happened next that crushed me forever.  If I didn't believe anything that was happening was real, his reaction to seeing me made it all real.

He ripped his hand from mine and looked at me as if he was terrified of me.  It was almost as if he thought I was trying to rob him.  In seven days my grandpa went from telling me how beautiful I was and how much he loved me to not being able to recognize his very first grandchild.

As soon as I could, I broke away and started to cry.  It was real.  I mean, I knew it was real, but it was really real.

Later that afternoon, the family gathered to pray the rosary.  When we finished, we stood around the bed and told him it was okay.  "It's okay for you to go, grandpa.  We are all here and we're all okay.  We'll make it because you've carved out the path."

Tears were shed, but we needed him to know that it was okay for him to pass on.  A few minutes later he spoke.  He hadn't really said anything in a few days.  He looked at my uncle and said "muerte la mesa".  We couldn't figure out why he was telling us he was going to die at the table.  We chalked it up to something we read in the book that the hospice folks left for us.  It was like he was in two different worlds.  When he spoke, he didn't know if he was here or there.

Friday, July 15th rolled around.  It was the same song and dance.  By this time he was sleeping 23 hours a day and awake for maybe a total of an hour in spurts of 3-4 minutes at a time.  That afternoon, we gathered again.  We prayed the rosary.  He was sleeping but my grandma was sure he held his rosary as we prayed.  Again, we stood at his bedside and told him it was okay.  It was just as emotional this time as it was the previous day.

He woke up after we finished again.  This time, he was trying to get himself out of his bed.  Something he hadn't done in what seemed like a lifetime.  My dad and his brother rushed to him to help him.  Grandpa was on the move and nothing was going to stop him.  Not pain, not starvation, not fucking cancer.

My dad and his brother held him up at the side of his bed.  He said nothing, but he smiled.  Someone in the room (it was constantly filled at this point) told him to look around.  "Look, Tom!  We're all here!  Look what you've created!  You are so loved!".  Grandpa was holding on to my uncle with the biggest smile I've ever seen in my life and managed to give us all a thumbs up!  He was happy.

As my dad and uncle settled him back down in his bed, he muttered again "muerte la mesa".  Still confused, we thought again, he was just in a state of delusion.  That afternoon turned into dusk and then a full moon night.  Dad and I stayed until around 10 that night before we headed out to get some sleep.  We were both staying at my maternal grandparent's house to sleep.

We had planned on arriving on Saturday morning around our normal time "we'll wake up, grab some breakfast and be here by 10", I remember telling my aunt as we left on Friday night.

At 5:45 on Saturday morning, my dad threw the door open to my room at my grandparent's house.  "We have to go", he told me.  I changed clothes and took my toothbrush with me.  The 10 minute drive from one house to the apartment felt like it was an hour long.  We were mostly silent.  For starters, it was early and next, we didn't want to talk about it.  We knew the time was getting closer, but again, you never want to talk about it.

We arrive and it's dark and silent in the apartment.  Everyone (grandma, my aunt and uncle and another aunt and uncle) is awake, but silent.  Things were not looking good.  Obviously.  We did everything we could to keep grandpa comfortable.  Around one in the afternoon, the hospice nurse showed up (she wasn't our regular nurse since it was a Saturday).  We pulled her into the master bedroom and asked her to be real.  In a nutshell, she said that everyone that wasn't a blood relative needed to get the hell out and give the rest of us, his legacy, time with him because the end was near.

We knew it.

...to be continued...