Cry to God!
As I told Kendall last weekend when he asked me why I was crying, I said, “My heart hurts, great-grandpa is sick and he isn’t getting better.” It bothered me because everytime I’d cry, he’d cry as any mother knows you can’t stand to cause your child pain. So I hid my tears as best that I could until David came to get the kids and then all hell just let loose. I thought I had cried as many tears as I could about it until tonight and it is because I have to say “goodbye” officially tomorrow and to my family one more time. I am having a very hard time tonight, all week I have been telling myself, he is just sleeping. I have been able to deal with everyone else’s grief for the time being, but now, it must be my turn again. It is just so hard. How do you say “goodbye, forever” to someone you love? I think if we knew, we’d have the answer by now without having to shed a lot of tears.
One of the pictures that stuck in my head this week was the night I came back to Grandpa’s room after everyone had gone to get coffee and just leave Grandma with Grandpa for a minute. I got half-way to the elevator and turned back to get my purse from his room. I came in and there was Grandma knelt beside him with her head down next his and they looked just so sweet together. I have had that picture flash over and over in my mind the past few days and imagining how she feels would just about rip my insides to shreds. Here is the man she has loved since she was 15 years old, and after 64 years of marriage is dying and not a damned thing she can do about it. Just watch, that’s it. One minute here asking you what to wear for the day, next minute not able to speak a word to you…no sign, no warning, nothing. Someone clearly peering out, but unable to say anything. Eyes looking back at you clearly trying to communicate something, but what exactly? Slowly evolving to sleep and shutting down before your own very eyes, but you are powerless to save them. How? How could this happen? How in seconds flat? I’m sure you find yourself bargaining with God, “Just one more hour, one more minute, one more sentence, second??? PLEASE?! We all feel this, but no one more so than my grandma for him.
And things we never knew…coming out from all members of our family. He is a WWII vet who until recently refused to talk about it for a very, very long time. From my uncle..He spoke German and Polish. What? None of us knew that at all. He was part of the military police who came in the day after D-Day.
From myself…”I remember a retirement party and an old metal box..it has a German uniform (I think) and a flag in it. He brought it out once”… I wasn’t allowed to get very close. It was 1983 when he retired, I was only 11, I didn’t know anything about WWII at the time, but I remember this…just bits and pieces from conversations over the years. He rescued people from the concentration camps and the things he saw were unspeakable…very, very unspeakable. Pieces I refuse to even write myself. He suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, not at all uncommon for the circumstances that he endured.
My cousin…He told me about the metal box and about the German soldiers. Told Grandma, “We need to find that old metal box Marie.”
I’m sure my uncles will go home and go searching for the box. I have to admit, I am very curious myself about the metal box. So are my uncles now that 2 of us girls have confirmed that there is one and Kelly only heard of it a couple of months ago, and I have remembered it for some 27 years? I wonder why I remember it so well? Him talking with his friends at the dining room table. I was in their old kitchen and curious enough to wonder what was going on. But then again, this is me you are talking about, I am curious! If the adults in the room were all huddled around it, it must be something worth knowing right? Funny I can’t remember anything else. Grandpa, and I don’t remember if my other cousins were there or not. I wish I could remember the story he was telling, but all I remember was everyone being fixated on the metal box, and feeling a little scared about it. I can’t even tell you for certain what color it is. Maybe the story is too horrific? Maybe the information is so terrible I don’t want to remember it? This is WWII, I hate to say it, but it was war. I’m sure he had to kill some people. I’m sure it came down to ‘Kill or Be Killed’. Maybe this is what I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to know. To think about someone I love so much, and who is this close to me, and being my own grandfather able to take another human life so easily..able to peel off one shot and take someone else. And now at any moment being about to lose his own life. Dear God. NO NO NO! This is why women are not in combat. We are givers of life and that is probably why it is so hard for us to think of taking another life, we would contemplate it way too long. Does this come easier for men? I am obviously not able to say, but it somehow must be.
Having had two children of my own, and in the very first paragraph addressing how I didn’t want to cause my own child pain. You can see why I would grapple with this! Well, any woman who has felt a living being grow inside her for months would. Well I will say 99.9% of us would. War is hell as they say. It can’t have been easy for him to live all of these years with that piece stuck inside, and not able to tell us some of those pieces of him. He could be gruff at times, but he always, always loved us. He could hurt and punish with a word, but we knew he loved us. No matter what. The three of us grandchildren that can be here, and all five of his children, and of course Grandma have relived our many stories at his bedside for the past few days about growing up with him and the crazy things that our family will always remember about all of us and him. Hoping to make sure it is the part of him he will take on his journey above and beyond all of us. For me, I know, I will always remember the sound of his voice when I would wait so anxiously for him on the phone…everytime to hear…”HI STACE!” Thank you God that I got to hear it so many times and I can’t forget that sound in my head. It is forever on playback so clear. Thank you so much for letting me hear it and remember it even though it hurts so much to listen to right now. I miss you, I miss you, I love you, I love you all the way to heaven and back again!
In my own silent prayer at his bedside tonight. I found myself begging God for his peaceful end. To please whisk him into Heaven and let his body finally rest. He is tired Lord, he is ready Lord, I know he is, we are not ready, but he is Lord. He has suffered long enough, please, please, please take him to Heaven with you. Amen.
Love you, love you, love you Grandpa!!!! Miss you, miss you, miss you and love you so, so much!!!!!
