Yesterday I woke up at five AM in Gainesville, in the cheap Days Inn by our old apartment. My son’s quiet, annoyed cries were just enough to get me out of bed. I nursed him until we both fell asleep again, cuddling against paper-thin sheets. The sun and an engorged breast woke me later. I shifted him and flipped over and poked him and tickled him until he woke up enough to relieve my discomfort.
And then we all woke up and packed up and drove away.
In High Springs, I sat on a rickety dock and touched my toes to the surface of the brackish Santa Fe. Oak pollen and dead leaves and drowned bugs floated by, carried by the current on the tea-colored river. I called my mother and we talked about my older son’s field trip and how she was about to leave to head to the hospital.
I had duck salad for lunch, nursed the baby in a big quiet booth by the restrooms, fed him again in the car, and then carried him around a small farmer’s market.
I checked in with my mom. She was back home and getting my little boy ready for his afternoon nap. Grandpa had been awake and had seemed peaceful, though oddly weak compared to his argumentative attitude from the week before.
At the market, I bought a miniature pie, two huge jars of honey, and a candle for my mom. George met me back at the car and we got back on the road home. Tired and full. I thought about all the pictures we’d taken the day before on campus. Pictures of where we met, where he proposed to me, where we lived, where—on our first long date—we collapsed giggling on a sidewalk and looked at the stars.
We talked about religion and faith, about how we wanted to raise our boys. About Catholicism and ritual and community and family. I called and spoke to my mom. The doctors had called out of the blue to discuss Grandpa’s living will. Then they called again and told her that his heart rate was dropping rapidly.
After twenty-six days in the hospital, just after four pm, my Grandpa died peacefully. My mom got there just in time to hold his hand and he passed.
He was seventy-three.
My dad called to tell me, saying simply, “He’s dead.” I wish, so much, that he had said it some other way.
George rubbed my hair while I cried into a spit rag.
Last night, my mom sat on their dock and watched the sun set on the last day of her father’s life.
I pray that these next days bring her peace and healing.
My little brother is on a scallop boat in the Atlantic. He is cold, tired, and unaware. After he comes in to port he’ll find out. He’ll fly home. I need to hug him.
I need a hug.
I need to say more, need to do more, need to think. But I am so tired. All I can do is cry.
I wasn’t ready for this.
This may or may not be related:
