The pain in the pit of my stomache is getting impossible to handle. Everytime the phone rings, it gets worse. Twelve days ago my grandpa had another heart attack – he’ll be 96 years old in August. The funny thing is, he had it on Thursday afternoon – but had a scheduled doctor’s appointment on Friday at 2:00 that he thought he’d wait for. That pretty much sums up my grandpa…

But he couldn’t wait that long.

He called my step dad on Friday morning to take him to the hospital – and he’s been there since. At first, I thought it would be like many other times; he gets sick, stops into the hospital to get better, then comes home. Last Tuesday, I think I realized it wasn’t going to get better this time.

I took a couple days off from work and went up to Chippewa to comfort my mom – emotionally she was all over the place. Between Grandpa being sick and the hospital being careless, it wasn’t a pretty site. However, I got to spend some nice time with him – he was on morphine part of the time, so he was a little out of it, but on Wednesday afternoon, I was able to talk to him more, laugh a little, and even see him get pissed at the nurses. Before I came back to Madison, I was able to have a moment with him and give him one last ’smacker’.

And now, I sit and wait for a call.

He’s been off liquid for over 24 hours now because there’s too much fluid in his lungs. His body has shut down, but he hasn’t. The waiting is so painful…. I try to think of the great memories.

Grandpa was born in 1910, and when he was an early teenager, he was paid $1 per truckload for running moonshine in Northern Wisconsin…. that’s amazing to me. During the depression, he was married and had his first child. He ended up having 7 kids, 12 (I think) grandkids, and a handful of great-grandkids so far.

My favorite part about him was his sense of humor. He had a unique speaking style, injecting lots of “see” and “why” into his sentences. Like a stereotypical 20’s crooner without the hard accent. My favorite, and actually most recent, joke of his… “Why, you know what you tell a person when they ask ‘How’d you sleep’, right?” No Grandpa, what do you tell them… “With both eyes shut! There ain’t no better way to do it, see.”

:) There’s so many others too… I promise to write them as I think of them. Make notes… something that will last longer than my memories will… my grandkids won’t know him, but I think it’d only be fair that they know as much as they can about him.

So I wait…. wait for a call that I know is coming but can’t know how soon… I feel guilty for ironing and packing clothes for a funeral already, but I just don’t want deal with that stuff after the call… I just want to grab a bag and go.

I guess I don’t know why I think I’m tied to waiting… I can just go, right? I’ll just go. I’ll stop waiting for the call and make the call myself. I’ll go sit with my mom.

It’ll be one less call she has to make… and one less person that has to wait.

UPDATE:
I got the call… Grandpa passed away while I was writing the above post. I’m glad he’s finally at peace.