I told her I was.
"I don't want you to be the last one to know," she continued, wasting little time. "Pop Pop passed away today." She was crying by the time she finished.
I put my head down and let the words sink in. I sucked in a giant breath and my heart began to race, pounding heavily in my chest. The rest of the way home I remained quiet.
It was only a week before my mom brought up that Pop Pop's doctor was going to try some new kind of medication for his...., one that would put him at a much higher risk for infection. She reminded me of the DNR (Do not resuscitate) in Pop Pop's will, and said she had talked to the nurses about giving him . I had heard bad news like this many times with nothing coming of it. Changes in medication and new treatments were the norm.
After suffering in a nursing home for the last two years, blind, confused, and alone, it wasn't a complete surprise to hear the news. Though no amount of preparing could ever dull the pain of hearing, and then believing, someone is gone.
I thought back on his life. My grandfather was known by a lot of names: Dad, Pop Pop, Primo, Pete, Uncle Pre, Scrappy. I thought that alone was a good measure of the quality of one's life. He was a husband, brother, father, grandfather, and friend to many people.
To me, though, he was more than any one name or any one label, to me he was a teacher. When I was young, Pop Pop would show me just the right way to tie up the tomato plants, or plant rose bushes for Grandma on the side of the house, mow the lawn or oil his .22. He told me time and again, always with a smile and within earshot of Grandma, "Never get married Jonny, never get married." And he warned me, against my will, not to start shaving until I absolutely had to.
He told me about his sister Mary in Pennsyvania, laughed when he recited stories about him and Uncle Chet.
My grandfather taught me about bravery and the true meaning of integrity. He loved nothing more than watching my face squint with bewilderment or light up in awe when he shared his stories from WWII. His face lit up, he sat up straight, and used his hands to orchestrate the story and show me how big something was. From the time he spent a month aboard ship heading to the other side of the world, helping the chef in the kitchen, sleeping in narrow bunk beds, watching, somehow, everybody else aboard ship get seasick except for him, to the time he and his company dynamited an old stump in the oppressive jungles of Burma and sent a fifteen-foot python sailing though the air and into the ethereal world of his stories.
The more time I spent thinking, the more paths opening up. Never again will we sit on the swing in the backyard and share stories, sit in the living room with Uncle Ernie and talk about politics, football, or the Yankees. Never again will I get phone calls in the late evenings about interesting shows on the Discovery Channel on dinosaurs or the history or our solar system, enthusiastically explaining to me over the phone the newest fossil findings or the latest scientific opinions on how our moon was formed.
And now there it was, just like that. An unassuming call on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon changed everything. A new chapter in my life was beginning, in my brother's lives, in my Mom's life.
Both of the only grandparents I ever really knew were now dead. When I was young, and this very moment seemed so far away, the voice inside my head told me this would happen. Anyone, I think, when they reach a certain age can't help but extrapolate the future and what it might be like. But every time I thought of losing my grandparents, I secretely, somewhere deep down, was always skeptical. That somehow all of it was not true. How could it be? It always seemed too far away ever to worry about.
Now reality was checking up on me, as it did on occasion, and reminding me once again I was wrong, that my love was useless, that life moves on and people die. Its shock followed my adrenaline down my body and into the ends of my fingers and toes.
The bond I had with Pop Pop was different than the one I shared with Grandma. This didn't hurt more, only differently. They both taught me things and gave advice on life, but Pop Pop showed me how to mow the lawn, talked to me about WWII, guy things. And I was a guy--or at least some day I was going to be. Our bond was different in an equal and opposite way. I realized then that all the stories, all the advice and suggestions Pop Pop shared weren't just passing the time or makng interesting conversation. He was teaching me what he knew after living a full life and preparing me for my own life, one that he wouldn't be around for every time I needed help or a bit of advice. I had only known him for a small portion of his life. The pictures and trinkets he shared with me from his past were only the surface of a much deeper sea, one that held a lifelong compilation of living, learning and experience. Whether we knew it or not, he was sharing with me the invaluable knowledge of life, earning by living his own, in the precious time we had together on the back swing or living room couch. And now I was on my own, left behind. It was time to start my own journey through life, and learn as much as I could not just for me, but for anyone that would be willing to listen at any point in the future.
My grandfather not only taught me how to do the right thing--everybody knows how to do somehting right--but why doing it was so important. That doing the right thing, working hard, and staying honest with ourselves and others was the key to having good friends and living a good life. To always help when you can, lie only when you have to, and never take advantage of anybody.
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