I’m Dyin

Life is full of death. Constantly we hear about it. Ten dead in mall shooting in West Texas. Death toll reaches 40,000 in the Middle East. Six million killed in the Holocaust. 2,977 dead in the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. 75 million in World War Two, 40 million in World War One. Man killed in car crash on Route 20. My dog died last week. Disease wiped out 96% of Native Americans, the Black Death killed two-thirds of Europe, we had to flush my goldfish, your great-grandmother said right before she died that she loved you. Sorry. Loves. That she loves you.

She parked messily in the driveway, a hospital-branded car already there, three kids pushing and slapping each other in the back, their laughs akin to screams to make it hard to tell whether they were actually hurting each other. “Guys,” she turned around with one finger pointing up. “You have to please behave today. Please be quiet, don’t be silly. Don’t put your hands on each other. This is serious.”

The kids calmed and sank back into themselves, still eyeing each other with mischief. The older one was wearing a thick flannel he got for his birthday combined with Adidas sweatpants, the middle had a video game graphic t-shirt and shorts, and the younger athletic socks pulled up to his knees and some kind of kid-sized fitness shirt he wouldn’t break a sweat in. French fries scrambled on the seats. She huffed and they got out of the car.

In the house all the lights were off and despite the sunshine the interior seemed gray. The air was not on so it was uncomfortably warm. Heavy footsteps carried down the hall against the fake hardwood flooring and a large nurse came out carrying something in a tied-up plastic bag. The mother greeted the nurse with a “Hi!” that was much too cheerful considering the circumstances and the nurse returned with one of equal if not greater inappropriateness. Friends until he was gone. The nurse said she’d be right back and took the plastic bag outside and the middle child watched her throw it in the trash can as a shiver went up his spine. 

“You guys wanna go see granddad?” she asked them as if they were six years younger than they were. 

The nurse came back and she led them down the hall and into the room where a lump of a man lied underneath plain white blankets, not sat up but wide awake. A monitor beeped at his bedside. Wheelchair folded up by the door. The curtains were all drawn and the shades all shut and all the knicknacks and photographs of years and people he could no longer care to remember sat on the dressers and the desk, having not moved since the mother was last here. The three boys stood with their hands behind their backs, afraid to speak. The younger one poked the middle one to which he whispered back in anger.

The mother approached. “Hey dad.”

He looked at his daughter in involuntary scowl, keeping up the illusion he was too weak to talk.

“How you feeling?” She was speaking louder.

“Well,” he said. “I’m dyin.”

She choked on words she had not yet come up with. “I know,” she mouthed. “Boys?”

One by one they approached him, in order from oldest to youngest, none eager to see the face of their dying grandfather but none scared. None yet sad or moved to tears, none yet fully understanding of the impact of death for they had not had a close relative ever die before. The air came on and it blew through the vents, its sound the only in the room, save for the rhythm of the beeping monitor. No one was smiling.

“Hey granddad,” said the oldest. He smiled at him.

“Hi granddad,” said the middle. He smiled at him.

“Hi.” He smiled at him.

“Are you okay?” asked the middle. They both understood how he meant these words.

“I’m a little hungry,” and he grinned slightly. “I haven’t been hungry for a while.”

The nurse had blended into the gloom like she had a thousand times before. “Do you want a snack? Pudding?”

He coughed like a fawn. “I’m so sick of the goddamn pudding.”

The middle laughed and the oldest smiled. It was meant to make the nurse laugh too but she did not. “Soup?”

“What kinda soup?”

“Tomato’s all you got.”

“Alright.”

She left the room and carried down the hall. Five in the room and each thinking the same thing behind nothing. So sick and quiet in there. Like the room was an organ of the house and it was shutting down and with it, so would the rest, eventually. Time is on nobody’s side, even when you want it to hurry up and get things over with. Especially then.

“Boys,” he said. “You love your mother.”

They could not tell if this was a question or a demand. They just nodded. Tears came from the mother, silent tears. He turned to her. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

This moment they may remember but as days and months and years go on they will forget. There will be a funeral and by the luncheon that follows half the people will forget why they are there. People will cry their tears and say their prayers and do what they need to do in the process of seeing someone slip off with the dead into the blackness. And then their lives will go on just as they had before and just as they will when they leave this house. She will go to work and they will slap and tussle each other and complain that they are hungry and bored. They will go to school and sports practice and meet girls and get sad and meet other girls and be happy and curse their parents and love their parents and go to college and become frustrated with the world that we all have passed through though theirs will be different than mine. When they leave I will look at this ceiling and not touch the soup as that nurse sits on the chair and scrolls through Facebook while my body fails to accept defeat and all the while I know it will be defeated by fate. I will recall all of my love and none of my hate, forget my successes and focus on my failures and what could have been had I taken that ride or rejected that paycheck for the life I never could commit to. I will remember my daughter as a little girl and not as an adult. My last thought will not matter because I will not be able to remember it when I am dead. 

“Weren’t there four of you at one point?” he said.

The kids were pretty sure he was joking. 

“That’s right. Bobby died of a broken heart when your mother wouldn’t take him for ice cream.”

The boys all smiled. “Sounds like you don’t have a choice now, mom.” 

She laughed and cried. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll get some ice cream.”

The room was gray. Outside it was warm and sunny. A breeze sailed through the trees as the sun began to wind down and birds sang happily and people walked their dogs and jumped in their pools and played music on the radio and life went on.