Jassy Melson
09-18-2010, 06:05 AM
The day my grandpa died
the sun did not refuse to shine,
the moon did not become as blood,
the earth did not quake,
graves did not open
and the dead walk out.
The day my grandpa passed away
was like any other September day
in east Tennessee: summer and autumn
mingling as one, green and red merging into dun,
lazy flies buzzing around sluggish dogs sprawled
on scorched paths, sandpaper tongues lolling out
trying in vain to gain moisture from the parched air.
The day my grandpa died nothing moved. It was too hot to move.
The moonsoon season of east Tennessee had ended three months past.
Three months of dry heat had baked the land
to a hardened clay (it was a potter's dream come true),
and my grandpa's relatives, baked along with the ground,
were in no mood to rend their clothes and to scatter ashes
at the news of his demise. They took it, as they had been raised
to take death, with stoical acceptance, appearing indifferent,
as indeed many of them were, even though he was the patriarch
of our clan, ninety-three years old with more than twenty-five
grandchildren and a half-dozen great-grandchildren.
Everything had been prepared for months and everyone was composed,
including the preacher who delivered a standardized sermon,
immaculate--down to the last semicolon. All was prepared,
and all were relieved in one way or another at his passing away
(he had lived "overlong" and he had lingered in the hospital
for an "unseemly" length of time).
Many of my realtives at the hospital, at the wake, at the gravesite
where he was buried beside his one wife of seventy years,
enjoyed themselves. There were so many gathered together
who had not been seen in years. It was an opportunity
to observe what each was wearing, how each had aged,
to say hello to ones vaguely known, to chat
about the weather and the cost of gasoline, to be seen.
Yes, the day my grandpa died was like any other September day
in east Tennessee: nothing happening, nothing moving, nothing changing.
And yet, I can't get his last words out of my mind. They crop up
at the most unlikely times.
There in the hospital, surrounded by strangers--doctors and nurses
and sullen relatives, my grandpa, racked with pain, vomiting green slime
every few minutes, knowing he was soon going to die,
and the honey-tongued preacher moving up to his face
and asking sugar-sweetly if he was ready to confess, my grandpa,
with four words, hushed all the buzzing of that gathered swarm. Four words,
unlike the preacher's hour-long rehearsed speech at the funeral;
four words: "I'm ready to go."
Four words that said it all, all that has ever been thought and felt and done
in the presence of death. Four little words my grandpa said,
on that September day in east Tennessee when nothing happened,
when nothing moved or changed.
the sun did not refuse to shine,
the moon did not become as blood,
the earth did not quake,
graves did not open
and the dead walk out.
The day my grandpa passed away
was like any other September day
in east Tennessee: summer and autumn
mingling as one, green and red merging into dun,
lazy flies buzzing around sluggish dogs sprawled
on scorched paths, sandpaper tongues lolling out
trying in vain to gain moisture from the parched air.
The day my grandpa died nothing moved. It was too hot to move.
The moonsoon season of east Tennessee had ended three months past.
Three months of dry heat had baked the land
to a hardened clay (it was a potter's dream come true),
and my grandpa's relatives, baked along with the ground,
were in no mood to rend their clothes and to scatter ashes
at the news of his demise. They took it, as they had been raised
to take death, with stoical acceptance, appearing indifferent,
as indeed many of them were, even though he was the patriarch
of our clan, ninety-three years old with more than twenty-five
grandchildren and a half-dozen great-grandchildren.
Everything had been prepared for months and everyone was composed,
including the preacher who delivered a standardized sermon,
immaculate--down to the last semicolon. All was prepared,
and all were relieved in one way or another at his passing away
(he had lived "overlong" and he had lingered in the hospital
for an "unseemly" length of time).
Many of my realtives at the hospital, at the wake, at the gravesite
where he was buried beside his one wife of seventy years,
enjoyed themselves. There were so many gathered together
who had not been seen in years. It was an opportunity
to observe what each was wearing, how each had aged,
to say hello to ones vaguely known, to chat
about the weather and the cost of gasoline, to be seen.
Yes, the day my grandpa died was like any other September day
in east Tennessee: nothing happening, nothing moving, nothing changing.
And yet, I can't get his last words out of my mind. They crop up
at the most unlikely times.
There in the hospital, surrounded by strangers--doctors and nurses
and sullen relatives, my grandpa, racked with pain, vomiting green slime
every few minutes, knowing he was soon going to die,
and the honey-tongued preacher moving up to his face
and asking sugar-sweetly if he was ready to confess, my grandpa,
with four words, hushed all the buzzing of that gathered swarm. Four words,
unlike the preacher's hour-long rehearsed speech at the funeral;
four words: "I'm ready to go."
Four words that said it all, all that has ever been thought and felt and done
in the presence of death. Four little words my grandpa said,
on that September day in east Tennessee when nothing happened,
when nothing moved or changed.