I watched ER tonight. I have not watched it in years. The show has become horribly cliche and unoriginal. The first couple of seasons were good, but now --uh. The only thing it reminded me of was my grandfather, who on my tenth birthday went into the hospital for a slipped disk in his back only to have his surgeon discover his body secretly riddled with cancer. The infestation and mutation of rebel cells began in his prostrate. The disease had already spread to his bones by the time it was found.
I remember the call to my parents house after we came back from a birthday party I had at a friends. I remember my mom rushing to the hospital concerned.
I remember the short, "What are you looking at?" when I got in the car with my grandfather the day my mother told her friend who was babysitting my little sister and I the prognosis.
I remember being told by a neighbor, as the treatments and long nights and the realization that my prayers were being unanswered by God for a miracle sunk in, that men do not cry. I didn't after that, not even at his funeral.
I remember watching a baseball game on the television with my grandfather in his bedroom as he obsessively used a tape measure to plot the circumference of his shrinking forearm. We used to go to baseball games all the time. I remember him asking me if I thought he was going to die. My face gave the non-bullshit answer.
I remember the morning he did finally pass. I stayed at my grandparents' house. Mom returned from the hospice where he was being cared for in his final days. The sun was bright. I think it was cold out. I felt guilty about the peace I got in knowing he had finally passed.
I remember being helped to get close up to his face as he lie in a casket in the funeral home by my grandmother. I remember my lips on his cold skin. It was the only kiss I ever remember giving him and it was a kiss goodbye.
posted by Joe Blow @ 12/09/2004 11:16:00 PM
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