A rasin in the sun

My Grandfather died yesterday. He was 95 years old.

We've known this was coming for a while. He's been in and out of hospitals and rehabilitation centers since March. March. March was a turning point, when it was discovered that he had colon cancer. The cancer was removed, and he was sent on his merry way, sent home, but this time with a home nurse to check on him and a nice young woman who came and cooked meals for him on the weekends. Things we'd been asking him to do for years, things he didn't want to do. Too expensive, too many people. Too much to handle.

And he was fine, for a while. He'd lost a lot of weight, in the hospital, but considering his previous resemblance to Humpty Dumpty, this was not necessarily bad. He had an occupational therapist who came to do strength exercises with him, things we'd been telling him to do since he stopped going to cardiac rehab. Too expensive, too far away. Too much to handle.

He kept losing weight, kept being tired. But he was 95, and his body had been stressed by the cancer and surgury. This was normal, right?

The cancer came back. Had it ever gone? Spreading. It had spread to other parts of his body. Couldn't be removed. Too much to handle. He had 6 months.

His 95th birthday party was in June. When I saw him, in the hallway of his condo building on June 11, he had indeed lost a lot of weight. He was leaning on a walker, but I could tell he hated it. Too much like being helpless, something he had never wanted. He told us his OT had said he could have a cane now, so we went to the drugstore and got him one. Had he lied? It didn't matter. He didn't want a walker at his party. He was 95. We did what he wanted.

The party was at the same place as his 90th had been, Allgauer's on the Riverfront, in the Northbrook Hilton. Everyone was there. His friends from his building. The boisterous little old ladies he played poker with, who told me he owed them 67 cents. His friends from the library where he had volunteered for many years. Family. So much family. My cousins, their children, their parents. I think we all knew.

Poppy with the great-grand kids at his 95th birthday party, June 12, 2011

This wasn't just a birthday party. Sure, it was that, celebrating the fact that this funny old man, grandfather of three, great-grandfather of five, poker player, armor restorer, jeweler, traveler, was now 95. But it was more than that. As my father reminded me a few days later, this was his wake. He wanted to be there, with everyone, for the last time. We all knew.

My father is, was, is his only surviving child. He also had a daughter, my father's older sister, the mother of my cousins, Ailene. I never met her, she died before I was born. I was named for her, though. A for Ailene, A for Andrea. My mother was lobbying for Olivia, but Andrea, A for Ailene, won. As my grandfather's only surviving child, my father visited him roughly every other month, monthly towards the end. We aren't big on emotions in my family. This was probably hard on him to do, to visit so often and watch his father fall apart, but it was never discussed. Like so many things. If you don't say it, it does not exist. Never, never discuss.

The question, no longer being when, was how. When we knew: soon. How was the mystery. Would it be the cancer, or his heart, his heart that had been failing for years. We always thought it would be his heart, but now there was the cancer. No one knew. We could never know. Will never know? It doesn't matter, knowing. It changes nothing, in the end. It matters not how you go, you're just gone. Gone. Gone forever, never to be discussed. We never discuss. Like my grandmother. Never, never discuss.

And so he was in the rehab center again. The nurse was concerned, and called my father. He got a one way ticket to fly out. Several days later, after my mother bugged him about it, he called me. Soon he said. It could be tomorrow, or it could be two weeks from now. Soon. Did I have any questions? No. What was there to ask? We never discuss, there was nothing to be discussed. Nothing to say. The next time he called, he said, would be because Poppy was gone, gone forever. Gone.

He called the next morning. I knew. Saw the name on the screen of my phone, and knew. Gone. Just gone. I picked up the phone, and that's what he said. Gone. Did I have any questions? No, no questions. What was there to ask? Gone forever, never discussed. Did I want anything? I mentioned that I had always like the silverware, it was special, for special occasions. It felt wrong to say. My father scoffed. Why did I want that? It was just plate, not the real thing. The wrong thing to say. It was special, it had memories, that was all the value I needed. And yet it felt wrong, wrong to ask, wrong to say.

And now he's gone. I have photographs, and memories, but those will all fade. I don't remember much of my grandmother, and eventually I won't remember much of him, either. Gone, just gone.

Yesterday, all day, over and over, in my head, was A Raisin in the Sun. We read it in sophomore English in high school. I don't know why I remember it, but I do. Over and over, in my head.

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up, like a raisin in the sun?
Does it fester like a sore, and run?
Does it stink, like rotten meat,
Or crust and sugar over, like a syrupy sweet?
Does it sag, like a heavy load,
Or does it explode?

Bang. Gone.

This didn't sink in for a while. Gone. What is gone? This man I saw once or twice a year, gone. Did this change things? It must. Gone. Gone how? Just gone. What changed? One less airplane flight. No more afternoon puzzles on hot, thunder-stormy days. No more five o'clock cocktail.

No more letters.

That was it. No more letters. I wrote him every Friday, and got a response back sometime during the week. No more letters. I mailed one on Friday, as usual. Saturday, he was gone. Will never get that letter. No more letters, not ever. No more discussions. Don't discuss, never discuss.

I miss you Poppy.

Lots of Love,
Andrea

Elmer Hulman, May 8 1916 - September 24 2011