Do Not Go Gentle

Kids are splashing and shouting their way through some nameless game in the pool.  The sun is too bright to see without squinting, and the damnable wind of the Arizona spring is flailing the palms and palo verde. On the surface, it is a typical--some might even say pleasant--April day.

I glance again at the text.  It doesn't feel any more real than it did a few minutes ago.  Yet there it is, a bare mouthful of words that hits the gut like a punch.

He's gone now.

A particularly large splash is followed by delighted shrieks.  There is a strange discordance in supervising the insurgent chaos of children while their grandfather lies dead only minutes away.  Will they cry, too, when they find out?  Or will they accept it with the odd, somber gravity of the young?  We’ll put off finding out for a little while longer.

They know why we’re here.  They watched their dad’s face pale as he received a call about the stroke, made arrangements and then drove off within the hour.  As we loaded the van the next day, I explained that Grandpa wasn’t doing well and probably wasn’t going to live.  They nodded along as I told them it was okay to be sad, scared, angry, or even to feel nothing at all.

The world feels much the same as it always has.  Somehow, the world still has his imprint in it; the edges of the space he filled are not yet beginning to soften and blur, holding his place for a short while more.  It is bizarre to think that he is simply not here.  He should be in some out of the way corner of the kitchen, teasing old rock riffs out of a guitar with work-leathered fingers, sneaking the grandkids popsicles while their moms weren’t looking, sharing memories of misadventures with a bass chuckle that reverberated in your chest.  This great, rumbly bear of a man moved loudly through the world.  How is there suddenly silence?

The family is still together, every generation leaning in for these last precious moments.  They aren’t alone. Bandmates, past flames, and old friends fill the edges of the room.  Some of them know him from his work in the addiction recovery program, friends forged in the fires of recovery who came to offer a final, grateful tribute to the man who had fought their same battles and won—and came back for them, and their families. A thousand facets of a life decisively lived crowd that small hospice room, reflected in the tears of those around him.

All too soon the terrible, practical conversations of death will take place.  In the numb moments between waves of grief there will be talk of logistics, of death certificates, funeral homes, and all the imminent minutiae that the dying leave to the living—what flowers, which day, who will write the obituary and how the costs will be shared.  A thousand unimportant and yet necessary decisions.  There will be harder conversations, too—what is best done for the boy left behind, now facing high school as an orphan, and how to handle any property and debts without the clarifications of a will.  All are conversations that should have been years, even decades away, forced to this moment by chance.

Tomorrow will be time enough.  For now, there will be memories shared with a bittersweet twist to the lips, and jokes tinged darkly around the edges.  Heart sick sorrow for a father lost.  Relief that the grey, shrunken creature in the bed is at peace.  Guilt at the relief.  What comfort can be offered will be given to a mother who never wanted to outlive a son, to a boy left alone, and to the sons and daughters who had to make harrowing, impossible choices and will be wracked with doubt even as they grieve.

And somehow the wind still blows, and the sun shines, and the world moves on around this pocket of loss.  Another spring day, a little emptier than before.