(Me, Grandma, Pops)
This isn't a 'woe is me/please pity me' post by any means (and thank you ahead of time if you're leaving condolences), but it's been a weird week in regards to mortality for me.
On Monday, Surya's father died. Surya was my brother-from-another-mother during my time in San Francisco. Like an older brother who happened to like making the same bad decisions I did. I love his family. As I was the best man in his wedding, I got to spend a ton of time with them in Los Angeles and when they came to visit him in San Francisco (and later, when he and his wife moved to Napa). I know he's hurting and that's rough, even though his father has been slowly deteriorating for a few years now. The slow burn is the worst.
(Bucho & Surya, SF circa 2010)
My grandmother was admitted to the ER a couple weeks ago. Complications from...well, life...and previous surgeries from decades before arose. She was in the hospital for a night before being taken home for hospice care. She got to spend her last weeks at home around family, which must have been nice.
My grandmother made dope birthday cakes with marshmallow frosting, traveled the globe extensively, quilted, taught at a school for the deaf and the blind, volunteered her time at a local hospital's gift shop, and was straight up ruthless as a motherfucker when playing Monopoly.
I'm sorry I wasn't there with her at the end, but I got to spend a lot of time with her while she was on her way there. 93 years is a long time to make a difference while making some memories.
And now my pops is in the ER. The family took him in last night. He's been in pretty piss-poor shape for awhile; 60 years of smoking and drinking certainly didn't help and was part of the reason I recently quit smoking myself. He was never the healthiest of people, but he would never go to the hospital. Stubborn as fuck, that one.
Finally, about two years ago, he finally gave in and started going to the VA for help. Spinal issues had him laid up for awhile and he began walking with a cane. We're pretty sure that, despite the doctor's orders, he's still drinking heavily. He's not eating, complains of dizziness (probably because of the drinking and not eating...duh), so...now that his mother (my grandmother) has passed, he's decided to focus on getting himself taken care of. I guess he didn't want to not be around her while she was at home after her initial hospitalization.
I very much hate the thought of aging. Not for any conceited reasons, but because I just have this innate hatred of having anyone take care of me. I will be the worst elderly person ever because of this. I don't want to keep shuffling around until I'm nearly 100 (like my great aunt Evelyn, who I saw last weekend for her 100th birthday). I don't want to have to put my family in the position of having to watch me slowly melt into someone unrecognizable because age and time have finally had their way with me.
I hope that my death is quick. I hope that it comes after a solid lifetime of treating people decently, after creating art that people enjoy consuming long after I'm gone, after I've done all that I can and taught the people around me the things that should be learned.
You'd think I'd be better at dealing with death considering how much I talk about/around the topic in my stories, but that's not the case. I guess we all just handle it differently; there's no one right way to grieve.
