Today will have been the last day I saw my grandfather, James Allen, alive.
He's in the last stage of Alzheimer's at 73 years of age, and he'll be gone any day now. He is the closest approximation of a male role model that I've ever had, i love him very much, and will miss him dearly. I will have nightmares of what I've witnessed today for the rest of my life.
He lay there, in a fetal position, more bone than flesh, a skeletal and helpless shadow, completely devoid of dignity with his mouth agape. His arms and legs have wasted away from atrophy, but the tendons remain only to torture a good man with constant tremors of the hands and feet. His own body is now his worst enemy, with dry and red eyelids hardly able to open and lips just as useless, and chapped like peeling paint.
Contact with my patriarch was questionable. He can hardly hear and found it difficult to speak, only stating "yes" when offered water by the spoonful. His eyes while open constant
ly blink with a consistency akin to the tremor in his extremities. I had to test our contact by moving closer and farther and watching his pupils slowly find focus, and to the side to see if his eyes followed. I think he did see me, but I could just be deluding myself.
I told him of a chance encounter I had with his former place of work, FDNY Engine Co. 33, where he served as a lieutenant, and of his photo on the wall from the 2005 "Bowery Boys" Old-Timers Reunion. I told him that I always miss him. And I do. He's the only one in the family willing to entertain a discussion of politics, if only just to push my buttons. I told him I love him, held his head, and kissed him goodbye.
His older brother Larry was there, speaking of him as if he were already dead, and musing that he's "got a few years left and then he'll go." This disturbed me profoundly.
Back at the house, where we had earlier eaten a pressured noontime turkey dinner, my grandmother made me choose which of his suits he will be buried in. And then a tie.
On the way home, my uncle, grandfather's namesake, told me that grandma wants us to serve as pallbearers. I could only think that there are but two adult males in the family capable of this, that my brother Jack and cousin Errick are still too young and small. This did not sit well with me.
It took every ounce of my will to hold back the tears that are currently pouring from every hole in my face as I type this. My composure was reserved for my family. I treat myself now to a total lack thereof. This is what I am thankful for on this day. That I can give water in honor of a man that I love.
