Never a burden, always a gift

My grandfather Jack Powers’ death and how I experienced it:

Warning: This post contains graphic details about my grandfather’s death and the grieving period that followed. If discussions of morbidity, mortality, and death bother you, you should stop reading now.

I went to sleep peacefully on the evening of Friday, June 10, 2016, relishing the rest after a very stressful week working on fieldwork for my PhD in China.

Beep beep rumble rumble

My phone was vibrating next to my head.  

I woke up and looked at my phone. It was 3 am. There was a voice message on WeChat from my Dad.

I thought to myself, “Well grandma is fine now, so it’s probably nothing. Probably my mom using my dad’s phone to say hello as she enjoys doing from time to time. That was silly of me to forget to put my phone on silent.”

I promptly put my phone on silent and descended into a restful slumber for the next 6 hours.

I woke up at 9 am on Saturday morning, and sleepily realized I had a lot of work to do.

“Ah, I better check my phone to see what those messages from Dad were about last night,” I thought sleepily rubbing my eyes and opening my phone.  

I had 5 voice messages and two text messages from my dad. The text messages read, “Important to call. ASAP. Urgent.” My stomach dropped.  

I listened to the first message received at 3 am from my Dad: “Sarah, your grandfather is very sick. He’s not doing well. You need to call us ASAP.” 

I listened to the next message received at 8 am from my dad. “Sarah, I’m sorry to say that your grandfather passed away this evening.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. No. Fucking no. Shit.  

“Your mother and I are going to bed soon, but do try to call as soon as you get this message. Also, you should buy your plane tickets to come home for the funeral now.”

I called my dad’s cell phone right away using Skype. It was 11 pm EST on Friday, June 10, 2016.

“Hello?”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank god they hadn’t gone to sleep yet.

“Hey, Dad. I just got your message.”

“Yes, regretfully your grandfather passed away a few hours ago and blah blah blah blah,” he said in calm, technical language. I didn’t hear the rest.

“Put mom on the phone,” I interrupted him.

“Hi sweetie,” my mom said calmly.

“What happened? Tell me everything.”

“Well, last night Pheonix [the nursing home where my grandpa lived] called me to tell me that your grandfather was really restless; he was walking around and not sleeping. I told them to give him a glass of milk. By the time I got over there to see him at 10 pm, he was asleep. I called Sherry and told her not to come this morning, telling her that I wanted to spend time with my dad the next day. So I went back the next morning to find your grandfather sitting on the floor and saw that he had been vomiting blood on himself and his bed sheets. I called the aides to come clean him up. They changed his clothes, washed his face and changed the sheets. The whole time he was completely unresponsive.”

What does that mean, “unresponsive”? I asked.

“His eyes were closed and he was just laying there as if nothing was happening. The doctor said he had about 48 hours to live. So I called hospice and, well I won’t get into it now, but suffice it to say that they were completely useless. We never were able to get him pain medicine because they messed up the prescription. He was breathing hard and shallow, like a death rattle. At about 7:30 pm, your dad went out to get sushi take-out for us. While your father was out getting food, your grandfather stopped breathing. I just sat there with him for about 20 minutes. I knew in that moment that he was gone. He just wasn’t there anymore.”

My sister was already on a flight from Spain and my aunt was on a flight from Moab. We talked logistics. 6 hours later I was on a plane heading to Beijing. I stayed overnight in Beijing for about 6 hours, and the next morning I was on a plane to Chicago.

I had a strangely wonderful and happy time on that flight. The seat next to me was empty so I had a lot of room. I like long flights across the Pacific. You get to watch TV and eat the free snacks and read and even work on your articles (so sue me, I’m a workaholic). A few times, I caught myself thinking, “BEST. DAY. EVER,” as I am wont to do when I find pleasure in the tiny and neat airplane meals. I love their separate containers on the tray filled with spaghetti, roll with butter, and even a chocolate brownie for dessert. I don’t know why, but I was as happy as a clam dork on that plane.

I transferred in Chicago and was on my way to Raleigh, North Carolina. I arrived in Raleigh at 3 pm on Sunday afternoon, June 12th. My mom and dad picked me up at the airport and it was wonderful to see them. I took a long nap. My sister came in to wake me up for dinner, and we talked. I remember feeling happy and safe and full of love for my sister and my family in that moment. My parents, sister, and aunt are the family members I am the closest to, and I was happy to be with them then and there.

On Monday, my mom, sister, aunt, and I went to the cemetery to work out the logistics of the burial plot, and after lunch went to the funeral home. As a good-bye ritual, we wanted to dress the body ourselves. We walked in to one of the viewing rooms to find my grandpa lying on a gurney face up, his body covered in a sheet, his eyes closed, but his mouth still open.

“I closed his eyes when he died,” my mom said.

He looked so peaceful, laying there like he was sleeping. His body was ice cold. “Dad, you’re so COLD,” my aunt said, tearing up and touching him briefly and then pulling her hands back quickly as if she had gotten burned.

He was still in the clothes he died in: white khakis and a white “Moab Music Festival” t-shirt. We took his pants off and replaced them with his blue, pin stripe trousers. We put on him a button down shirt, a vest, and his blue pin-stripe blazer. In his vest pocket, we carefully placed his pocket watch, memorabilia with a tiny gold football dangling from it. “1951 Rose bowl,” it read, commemorating the year that my grandpa played in the Rose bowl for the University of Michigan, the same year he married my grandma. He looked dapper, handsome, and oh so peaceful. Quiet. Still. Restful. Sleeping.

Together we lifted him and placed him in the coffin.

We had planned a “green burial” and his coffin was biodegradable…aka cardboard.

We took the lid off and turned it upside down. The funeral director got us magic markers and we started drawing on the lid.

My aunt wrote all of her favorite memories she had shared with him, especially during the 14 years that they lived in Moab and Castle Valley, Utah together: singing, river trips, skiing, playing bridge, and vacationing in Mexico.

My sister drew a rendition of the home he had built in Castle Valley that we had visited in our childhood: the house, deck, creek, tennis courts, orchard, and the infamous backhoe he had let me drive when I was 7 years old. My mom took a picture of us there:

I wrote random memories on the box and the thoughts that came to me:

Elixir of life. (It was his favorite drink, a mix of Sprite and grape juice)

Monster. (It was a game we played when I was little, a game that involved a lot of screaming and wrestling.)

Thank you for paying for my schooling.

Thank you for building me a bed.

Thank you for picking me up from school.

Thank you for teaching me how to drive.

Thank you for passing me food at the dinner table.

That one might require some explanation. When my parents weren’t working nights, we tried to have family dinners once a week or so when I was in high school. I’m sure it happened more than once, but I have a vivid memory of him passing me the broccoli during dinner one day. I was in the middle of eating. I usually just ate one thing at a time on my plate. He was sitting there holding the bowl of broccoli up, kind of shoving it in my face, saying, “Do you want some broccoli?” I just looked at him, sighed and rolled my eyes, and said, “No, not right now.” The look in his eyes was of such sadness and shame. He put the bowl down and looked back down at his plate, his shoulders slumped and didn’t say anything for the rest of the meal.

God, I was such a fucking shithead.

As I sat there looking at what I had written on the cardboard coffin, I was overcome with a tidal wave of sadness. Sobs wrecked my body. I ugly-cried loudly. I didn’t care who was listening. My mom hugged me.   

Then I wrote: “You were never a burden, always a gift.”

You see, my grandpa had Alzheimer’s and he moved in with us when I was 14, so that he could seek help at the geriatric psychiatry center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He was severely depressed and quickly losing his memory. He wanted help ASAP. We wanted to figure out if he was depressed because he was losing his memory, or losing his memory because he was depressed.

The first few years he lived with us while I was in high school, he was still relatively independent. He could drive. He often picked me up from cross country practice and drove himself to the Forest Hills and Turtle Creek Senior Centers for bridge games.

When I think about those times, he was so sad and so withdrawn. When I imagine him during that time, I look into his eyes and I see that he felt shame for being a burden on my already very stressed out family. I honestly can’t remember a time when I hugged him to say, “I’m glad you’re here. I appreciate all the help you give me and my family. Thank you.”

I didn’t tell him often enough how much I loved him and how much I appreciated him being there during those years. I feel so incredibly sad every time I think that he might have thought he was a burden to me and my family.

He was never a burden, always a gift to all of us, every single day. But I don’t think he knew that, at least I didn’t tell him often enough. 

Sometimes I didn’t feel like hanging out with him because I knew he would forget it even happened the next day. I ignored him sometimes.

I was a high school student, busy with cross country, track, marching band, and obsessed with my grades and my boyfriend. I cared more about getting into a good college than spending time with him. And that I deeply, deeply regret.

I remember he would take me shopping sometimes. He once bought me super nice, expensive, warm winter jacket. I was thrilled. I do hope he got some satisfaction knowing that he was supporting me in that way.

I wrote the following message on post-it notes and put them in my wallet: “Never a burden, always a gift,” to remind myself of three things: 

1) The challenges we are given in life are gifts, they are lessons that teach us how to be strong in difficult times, to reach out in compassion to other people who feel our pain, and regrets are important lessons of change and growth.

2) Just as my grandpa wasn’t a burden, even in the last 5 years when he stopped talking and being able to live independently, I too am not a burden on my family and friends either, even though it does feel like it sometimes when I ask for help. You know how good it feels to help someone out when they need it? Give your friends the chance to feel good by helping you. 

3) Tell people I care about how much I appreciate them and how much I love them, and to spend time with the people I love and appreciate them while they’re still around because time waits for no one.

We went to the cemetery the next day. I wore my colorful atlas (a Uyghur design) tights on the day of the burial in memory of my 100-peso jacket, which my grandpa had brought back from Mexico and which I wore religiously until I was in third grade. My uncle joined us on a 48-hour break from taking care of my grandma in Michigan.

We lifted the lid to his coffin and saw his face one last time. Resting. Peaceful. Sleeping. His body was starting to smell. Because we were doing a green burial, he didn't have any preservation products on him. We put cookies, sweet potato pie, Hydrox, and Milky Ways (his favorite foods) in his coffin. We lowered him into the ground in a burial plot in the middle of a forest. His grave is within hearing distance of a high school football stadium. We toasted with Elixir of Life and poured it on the coffin. Then we took several decks of cards—the cards he had been playing solitaire with just a few days earlier--and threw the cards out one by one into his grave. 

I thought about all the times we played cards together. I cried hard and loud, as if somehow he would hear me and know how much I loved him and how much he meant to me and my family. We all took turns with the shovels, putting the dirt back on top of the coffin. We sang “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

I wrote him one last note on a notepad with a purple pen and put it in his grave: Dear Grandpa, You were never a burden. You were always a gift, every single day.

We walked away then.