Confessions of A Working Girl

Tonight, after dinner and presents, my dad and I brought my nana back to the nursing home type place where she now lives. It’s kind of sad to think that she’s getting old…but I’m afraid that it’s pretty obvious. My other set of grandparents, while older than my nana, are a lot more active, and don’t seem quite as old…even though, at this point, I think my grandfather is 86!

On the drive back, my dad and I were talking about it, and I remembered reading somewhere that older people often fare better if their significant other is also still around. My dad’s parents (my grandparents) are still both alive. But out of my mom’s parents, at this point, there’s only my nana. Her husband, my grandfather (let’s call him Grandpa J) died…wow, close to nine years ago!

It was 2001, and I was in the fifth grade. At the time (and up until tonight, in fact) all I knew was that I came home from school one day…June 14, and saw that my parents had odd expressions on their faces. They didn’t tell us what had happened until the three of us that went to school had all come home. (For my family: I was 11, Jin was 9, Ido was 8, I think,  Yoi was 7, Kana was almost 4 and Tomo was one and a half.) Well maybe there were four of us in school then…but I remember that mom gathered all three of us into her arms and said that Grandpa J had died. I couldn’t say what my brothers felt…all I remember feeling was, at first, total shock. That shock lasted until after we had gone to pick Yoi and Kana from a “playdate” at a friend’s house. We walked into their yard and Ido announced “Grandpa’s dead.” But he didn’t say it very loudly, so I’m not quite sure who besides me heard that statement.

My understanding of Grandpa J’s death then, was that he’d had a heart attack and died. It was his second heart attack–he had had one a few months before I had been born, and the doctors had told him that he had only maybe a year to live. He had outlived their estimate by about a decade…then the second heart attack was too much.  I’d always known that the heart attacks had probably been brought on by the fact that, at one point, Grandpa J had been a heavy smoker. But before I was born, he had quit, cold turkey. I remember being proud of the fact that he was one of the few people that could suddenly quit one day and never look back.

Tonight, my dad mentioned some new information. Grandpa J had been sick for at least a week before he had his heart attack. I had never known that. I had thought that the attack had happened suddenly, coming from no where. But no. It seems he had been sick…and if he had lived, it would have most likely only been for another couple of months and those months would have been pain filled. I also hadn’t known that on the very day he died, he was supposed to go in for tests to see if he had cancer or something. While interesting, and most definitely information that I want to know, it changes nothing–none of my memories, that is.

After Grandpa J died, almost the next week! One of my cousins got married. They had decided not to call the wedding off, because, at that point, it was best to just go on. They probably regret that he was not able to be there. I have regrets about Grandpa J too. I regret that he wasn’t able to see me go into 6th grade, which, by all accounts, was his favorite grade (he was a former teacher) I also regret not being able to ask him about 9/11. I wonder what he would think, since he was in the navy in World War II. I regret that I was only able to know him for such a short time. I regret that he never got to meet Dori, who wasn’t born until almost a year after his death. More than the regrets though, I try to focus on the memories.

I remember one time, after school, Grandpa J was babysitting Jin and me. He made us toast for snack. I wanted more, but when he went to make more, he decided that the toast hadn’t been dark enough to begin with. So he turned it up a little. And my mom had left papers on top of the toaster. The papers went up in flames. I remember Grandpa J stomping on those papers that he had pulled to the floor. He had also pulled the–now black–toast from the toaster and put it into the sink. Once the flames on the papers–and in the sink–were out, I went over to the sink and looked in at the toast. And Grandpa J asked something along the lines of “Do you still want it?”

One thing that was a direct result of that is that ever since then, we have had a fire extinguisher in our kitchen.

I remember another time, Jin and I were in the backseat and Grandpa J and Nana were driving us to their house, after Grandpa J had run into the store to get a snack–which we weren’t allowed to see yet. I remember that Grandpa J told us that if we guessed what the snack was, we couldn’t have any. But Jin guessed–ice cream sandwhiches–and he was allowed to have some anyway.

The thing I remember the most, was that Grandpa J was always threatening us with knuckle sandwiches. When we said something a little odd, or a little rude, he’d always make a fist and tease “Do you want a knuckle sandwich?”  But if we were more than a little rude, or if we outright would not listen, he’d get stern, and we would know that if we did not start listening, we would get in trouble. And he was stern in a different way than mom and dad were.

I remember one time, Nana, Grandpa J and I went to IHOP. I think what I did was something as little as not wanting to put my coat on as I got out of the car before we went into the building. But I think Nana had told me to. When I didn’t, she kind of shrugged it off, and started to go into the building. But Grandpa J got stern and gave me a little bit of a talking to. I don’t remember anything of what he said, but I remember that when he was done, I felt bad about not listening.

(Maybe that’s where my dad gets it–my dad too is very good at making you feel bad–bad here being partially defined as “guilty” when you don’t listen or don’t try hard enough)

I have other memories of Grandpa J, but these are the most defined, the clearest. The others are much blurrier, and I don’t remember nearly as many details.

A while after Grandpa J died, I dreamed that I was in his and Nana’s house. Everyone was bustling around, getting ready for some holiday celebration or something, moving food from the kitchen to the dining room. Grandpa J ‘appeared’ and stepped forward. “Don’t cry” he told me–so of course I suddenly was. Or had I been crying to begin with? That part is no longer clear…what is clear is the memory of being surprised at hearing his voice again, even though I think the only words he said to me then were the two–”Don’t cry.”

And then…I wrote a poem. I mixed the timeline about the dream, but I feel that the poem does justice to the attempt to describe a now gone loved one:

Once a night long ago,

I dreamed of you; tell me why?

How was I to know

the next day you would die?

I know you’re safe in heaven

but I can’t help but miss

the way you used to talk,

the way you used to walk,

the way you would threaten with a “knuckle sandwhich”

There’s no one quite like you

and I know there’ll never be

But I can’t help but miss

the way you used to 

talk

and laugh

with me.

 Looking back now, I think that’s a pretty good poem. I know there are probably better poems out there written by better poets…but hey, those poets didn’t know my Grandpa J. Besides, I was eleven years old when I wrote that poem…maybe twelve.

So I suppose, on this Christmas Day Eve, what I want to say is remember the people you’ve lost. Remember, even if it hurts a little, the people that you’ve shared this holiday with in the past. They still love you as much as you love them. And I bet they think of us just as often as we think of them.

And remember the people you spend the holiday with now. Don’t waste that time…every moment is precious.

Note in response to dad’s comment: I like my spelling better!

1 Comment » Dad:

December 28th, 2009 @ 5:13 pm It is a pretty good poem, except for the fact you spelled sandwich wrong…