Anniversary

I've been in a bit of a funk this weekend. I took Friday off just for the hell of it, so I had a four day weekend. I got a ton of stuff down around the house and in the garden. I've been thinking about my grandfather a lot lately. This weekend is the 13th anniversary of his death. I remember it as 'the weekend before finals my sophomore year'. He was my paternal grandfather and by far my favorite grandparent. He and my grandmother lived in town, so we saw them almost every weekend. He was kind, sensitive, extremely intelligent even though he never graduated from high school, and just a loving presence in my life. It was a real blow to me and my family when he killed himself. He shot himself in the head in the evening after seeing all of us earlier in the day. I distinctly remember him asking me and my sister what we wanted to be when we grew up. So, I guess this was something he had planned ahead of time. I was the one that got the call around 11pm. I was reading, and everyone else was asleep. I answered the phone and a lady I didn't recognize said 'your father is dead and your mom needs your help'. I told her to hold on. I thought my parents were in their bed sleeping and didn't know what to do. I woke up my sister and told her what the lady said. She picked up the phone and talked to the woman. Then she said 'fuck' and hung up the phone. She woke up my mom who called my grandparent's house. It turns out the woman on the phone was their neighbor and she thought I was my mom when I answered the phone. My grandparents lived about 10 minutes away so my mom and sister went. I don't know why my dad didn't go, but maybe my mom didn't want him to see it. All I know is that he shot himself in the side of the head. I didn't even know he had guns in the house. I've never talked to them about what they saw when they got to the house. His funeral was the first funeral of a family member that I really knew. He had an open casket and I remember thinking 'that's not my grandfather, that's just a body'. I think that experience is why I want to be cremated. I don't see the purpose in caskets, burials, and cemeteries. Cemeteries are full of plots that no one cares about or remembers. I'd rather be in a pretty jar on a shelf somewhere. Anyways, I wasn't angry at my grandfather for doing it. I don't remember raging 'why? why?'. I knew he was very sensitive and it was hard living with my grandmother who was a complete bitch. Even my father accepts that his mother was a bitch. I found out later that my grandfather was an alcoholic and was addicted to pain pills. But, I was 15 and didn't see any of that. When he drank he got quiet and depressed, so it's not like he was a raging madman when he drank. He was always quiet and gentle around my sister and I.

He had been in the Army during WWII and I know he was part of a group that liberated a concentration camp. My mom found pictures after his death that she burned without letting us see them. She said they were disturbing..of bodies and stuff at the camps. I know that whole situation really affected him, and I wonder if that's why he chose Memorial Day weekend to kill himself. Rather symbolic, I guess. His mother had killed herself when he was a young boy by shooting herself in the heart. I have no idea what that did to him, growing up, but I'm sure it was significant. I guess it's a family tradition. Really, I won't be surprised that in 10 or 20 years my dad decides that he's had a good life and wants to choose when it ends. I don't see anything wrong with that. It's one thing for a teenager to be suicidal due to the hell of growing up...I think those people do need help. It's another thing for a person who has lived their life, are maybe in pain or having failing health and they want to choose when to end it. I think that's ok.

When I was in junior high I volunteered for about a year at a retirement home. There were so many people that just stayed in bed or in their wheelchair all day. They'd gone from vibrant, lively, contributing members of society to frail, confused, and despondent ghost of themselves. They had no dignity. What kind of life is that? I sure don't plan on going out that way. I still have a lot of life to live, and hopefully, it's another 30 or 40 years. But, when it's time, it's time, and I won't be one of those old people in a 'home', not looking forward to anything.