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Yay, a morning home.
I'm avoiding recording a video message for my grandfather, but i'm finding imagining what i would say a little easier if i imagine it as simply reaching out to another human being, not to my memory of a person.
Part of that is that my memory of him is so sparse. During childhood we visited frequently with my mother's parents. My memories are full of my mother's mother, of the yards around their homes, of finding the Reader's Digest abridged collections of books and devouring them while escaping, of outings and hikes with my father while escaping. I suspect the dynamic between my father and my mother's father was so toxic i've blocked it. The last exchange i had with him was a couple years ago. My mother and his second wife had dominated the conversation. In a final moment when he could get a question out he asked, "Why haven't you and that [spouse] of yours bought a house?" The tone wasn't curious but challenging, and i felt a judgement behind it. I remember being felt judged when he met my spouse for the first time (i can't recall if i found out later or if he tld me himself he didn't think we were physically attracted enough). I have several other memories of awkward conversations that didn't involve Christine but my work or education: those aren't clear.
I have my own judgements, fueled simply by the distress that he and his second wife have caused my mother and father, my aunt and uncle.* I have the story of him i carry, speculations my father and i have shared about how scarring Pacific submarine service in WWII must have been, what rescuing survivors (i thought of the Indianapolis, but i'm not sure now) must have been like. There's the understanding of how classist the Navy was and how difficult it must have been for him, promoted to the officer corps from the enlisted ranks, and how that explained some of the attitude my college educated father and my college bound self received.
I think i can let go of those, though, and just speak to his desire to live. He apparently surprised the doctors by how much he fought to recover over the past week, and he's chosen to have the risky surgery of a stomach port put in so he can get nourishment (he can't swallow enough food on his own). I can frame that desire as wanting to continue to be with his second wife, and can respect that fierce will.
* My uncle is another cipher of a memory, but i distinctly remember him feeding one of my cats crab under a table, while he picked through a remnant of a lobster himself. Seeing him withdrawn from the circle of family chatter, quietly including Grey Beard in his escape, created a bubble of memory that glows for me, a glimpse of a self who is constantly overshadowed by his rather mean wife.
--==∞==--
I continue to find the answer to my existential questions to be simply an affirmative mystery. My most fundamental element of faith is that it is better to keep living than to choose to die before my body is exhausted. This is sheer faith: i couldn't tell you why it's better in absolute terms. I don't regret this faith, and i hope that my role in the system and community is symbiotic and not parasitic. I don't expect that i will ever know the balance. I respect that if we remove ourselves from the community before the community is ready for our departure, it is a violence for those who remain.
Oh, if i live to 95, i have every intention of gracefully bowing out when my body is ready. Looking at my grandparents and parents, it looks likely that i could be vital that long.** But what if Christine were still vital? Would i be able to let go? I try to connect with my grandfather at this level.
**My mother's father's mother lived to her 90s (his father was an alcoholic), her father has lived to his 90s.
My mother's mother died at a younger age through complications from diabetes, but her mother's sisters lived to their 90s (one with Alzheimer's).
My father's mother lives at 95, vital and engaged. Her father lived quite long, her mother died from complications from an abortion.
My father's father was another alcoholic, but his father's aunt lived to her 90's. Most of the men lived either quite long or died early from external traumas.
I'm avoiding recording a video message for my grandfather, but i'm finding imagining what i would say a little easier if i imagine it as simply reaching out to another human being, not to my memory of a person.
Part of that is that my memory of him is so sparse. During childhood we visited frequently with my mother's parents. My memories are full of my mother's mother, of the yards around their homes, of finding the Reader's Digest abridged collections of books and devouring them while escaping, of outings and hikes with my father while escaping. I suspect the dynamic between my father and my mother's father was so toxic i've blocked it. The last exchange i had with him was a couple years ago. My mother and his second wife had dominated the conversation. In a final moment when he could get a question out he asked, "Why haven't you and that [spouse] of yours bought a house?" The tone wasn't curious but challenging, and i felt a judgement behind it. I remember being felt judged when he met my spouse for the first time (i can't recall if i found out later or if he tld me himself he didn't think we were physically attracted enough). I have several other memories of awkward conversations that didn't involve Christine but my work or education: those aren't clear.
I have my own judgements, fueled simply by the distress that he and his second wife have caused my mother and father, my aunt and uncle.* I have the story of him i carry, speculations my father and i have shared about how scarring Pacific submarine service in WWII must have been, what rescuing survivors (i thought of the Indianapolis, but i'm not sure now) must have been like. There's the understanding of how classist the Navy was and how difficult it must have been for him, promoted to the officer corps from the enlisted ranks, and how that explained some of the attitude my college educated father and my college bound self received.
I think i can let go of those, though, and just speak to his desire to live. He apparently surprised the doctors by how much he fought to recover over the past week, and he's chosen to have the risky surgery of a stomach port put in so he can get nourishment (he can't swallow enough food on his own). I can frame that desire as wanting to continue to be with his second wife, and can respect that fierce will.
* My uncle is another cipher of a memory, but i distinctly remember him feeding one of my cats crab under a table, while he picked through a remnant of a lobster himself. Seeing him withdrawn from the circle of family chatter, quietly including Grey Beard in his escape, created a bubble of memory that glows for me, a glimpse of a self who is constantly overshadowed by his rather mean wife.
--==∞==--
I continue to find the answer to my existential questions to be simply an affirmative mystery. My most fundamental element of faith is that it is better to keep living than to choose to die before my body is exhausted. This is sheer faith: i couldn't tell you why it's better in absolute terms. I don't regret this faith, and i hope that my role in the system and community is symbiotic and not parasitic. I don't expect that i will ever know the balance. I respect that if we remove ourselves from the community before the community is ready for our departure, it is a violence for those who remain.
Oh, if i live to 95, i have every intention of gracefully bowing out when my body is ready. Looking at my grandparents and parents, it looks likely that i could be vital that long.** But what if Christine were still vital? Would i be able to let go? I try to connect with my grandfather at this level.
**My mother's father's mother lived to her 90s (his father was an alcoholic), her father has lived to his 90s.
My mother's mother died at a younger age through complications from diabetes, but her mother's sisters lived to their 90s (one with Alzheimer's).
My father's mother lives at 95, vital and engaged. Her father lived quite long, her mother died from complications from an abortion.
My father's father was another alcoholic, but his father's aunt lived to her 90's. Most of the men lived either quite long or died early from external traumas.
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