Call off the funeral

I’ve dealt with death before, more times than I’d like to recount, but never have I dealt with the dying. I avoided the bedside of my paternal grandmother in early October and as the weather and the leaves turned, I breathed a sigh of relief that death would leave me be for a bit longer. Then came the phone call the Friday before Halloween: a dying grandfather, a request for the family to be at his side. And so I went. He didn’t look like the dying but the looks of the nurses and the special treatment provided in ICU screamed otherwise. With a gravely voice and eyes that couldn’t quite seem to focus, my maternal grandfather made sure his loved ones were at his side. He called us, one by one, and by name, to tell us that he loved us and to look after my grandmother. He talked about death and heaven and the beauty that awaited him. He talked about what he’d missed and what and who he’d loved. He flirted with the pretty nurses whose eyes welled up when they talked about how his body was shutting down. He made arrangements with the preachers he wanted to send him off. He discussed funeral arrangements and composed his obituary. He bragged about the seven pound sweet potato he’d grown and the farm he’d grown up on. And at this bedside were tears, laughter, prayers, food talk, memories, and hope. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we gathered by his side as a familym - a blending of voices rising up in caressing tones, seeking favors were favors could sought and accepting what the doctors deemed inevitable. Our October miracle occurred the day before the celebration of the dead. My grandfather met his wife as she walked into his ICU room with the following statement. “I think I can swallow; call off the funeral.” Sometimes it happens, the doctors say. Sometimes the answer to our prayers is the one we seek.

Today my grandfather is no longer in ICU but still in the hospital. He is eating and improving and still flirting with the pretty nurses; that beautiful place will just have to wait.