Ralph

When I was eleven years old, my grandfather died. I knew it was coming. My grandparents had built a house in Florida and the previous fall they drove down there from New York to spend their first season as 'snow birds'. My grandfather's sister and a close friend of theirs, who before moving to Florida had run a hot dog truck in town, had all moved to a small town called Spring Hill. It seemed to be filled with a lot of Irish and Italian New York transplants.

When they left I cried. My insomnia started. I used to sit in class and count down how many hours were left til I had to go to bed. The same year my grandparents left for Florida, my brother left for military school. I was suddenly very alone. I had shared so many meals with them, watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and Mash many nights. One afternoon my grandfather left his spot in the sun resting against the stone wall and sat in my grandparents Cadillac, he in the drivers seat, me the passenger. It had been years since he'd driven. We pretended we were going down to the  Jersey shore to go fishing and eat pizza. It is my favorite memory of him.

I took a trip to visit them with my aunt and uncle and my cousins for Christmas break. I snuck into bed with them in the morning and soaked in the smell of their sheets, so familiar, something I'd missed so much. When I moved to Brooklyn my grandmother gave me a stack of linen that she no longer needed. They all smelled like her, her house, her tidy little linen closet off the bathroom, a mix of Ivory soap and moth balls. I still have some pillowcases from her, but the smell is long gone. We took my grandfather to the beach when we were there and he sat on a bench, unable to move very well. I had never known him to be healthy. He had open heart surgey in 1976 and I was born in 1980. It seems like my whole life he was dying. But I guess we all are, in our own way.

I returned to Florida four months later for Easter break, this time alone. I spent ten days with them, eating and finding lizards in their back yard and watching him for clues. On the day before I was supposed to leave we were in the garage that connected to the house. He fell back against the door and it closed. My grandmother was on the other side of the door telling me to open it, to pick him up. I was eleven and not unusually strong and I was terrified I might not be able to move him. I managed to help him up and my grandma opened the door and we all went back inside.

I returned home the next day and sat on my bed with my mother beside me and I cried. I told her he was so much worse than when I had seen him for Christmas, I told her I thought he was going to die.

My grandparents flew home the next week and two days later my mom and I were sitting at our kitchen table having dinner and my mom got a call. He was in the hospital, she should come now. She called me from the hospital and let me know he had died, less than two weeks after I told her he would. I told her I needed to go to my grandma's house, I had to sleep with her, on his side of the bed, so she would not be alone. She agreed and came home from the hospital and drove me over there. I slept next to her that first night, holding her hand, protecting her.

I look at her now, diminished, broken down, confused, and I feel terrible, like I should be protecting her again. Like I have failed her. My eleven year old self would be shocked that I allowed her to be put in a nursing home. It was never my plan and yet here we are.