Alien Failure

Some days, you just gotta have a breakdown. It keeps you human.

It helps to repeat that mantra, over and over, when you're having one. It also helps not to say things like, "I can't have a breakdown right now." Because a breakdown will most certainly follow.

Trust me.

My grandfather died, and I can’t get the image of his empty body out of my head. I’ve never believed in ghosts, but I now feel haunted. At the time (11:40PM, to be precise), going in his hospital room was the only logical thing to do. I had to go in and get his things. I had to see him – someone had to see him. Didn’t they? Surely my grandmother and mother couldn't go in; neither of them would survive seeing his body just waiting there, empty. It didn’t occur to me maybe I couldn’t handle it either.

It’s funny how we think people look dead when they’re really sick. My sister and I discussed this during the week we watched my him waste away. My sister thinks she’s a Horrific Experience Team Member. But the truth is, I visited a completely different world. The horrible state we saw him in all week didn’t even remotely compare to the yellow cocoon he left us with in the end. It’s jarring how fast someone’s color leaves their body, even when they were pale to begin with.

I was too terrified touch him. I mean, who am I to be terrified in a moment like that? I wanted to want to hold his hand -- knew I should. Still couldn’t do it. Now I wish I had at least touched him. His head. Anything. He ought to have been hugged.

Instead I stuffed those moments full of tasks and officious behavior. I called the Mortuary and made arrangements. I prayed in the hall with the others and monitored my grandmother. I called people to let them know. There was so much to be done and I decided to do it all. Which is amusing since I'm pretty sure that, generally speaking, I'm barely even qualified to take care of myself. But throw me into a crisis situation and I could probably run a small country. I suppose when I'm forced to think about something other than myself, I become significantly more effective. At the very least, I like myself better.

The truth is, we were all stunned. We’d had more warning than we knew what to do with, but somehow we were completely underprepared. You can say goodbye to someone; you carve out your last hours with them in a way you never have to regret, but it’s impossible to believe they’re actually going anywhere. How could I? Since I began drawing breath on this planet, he’s never not been here. It’s experiential. We’ve worried about him before, suffered hospital bouts, discussed the inevitability of death, but not once did he actually disappear. It’s impossible to wrap my brain around his permanent absence, even now. Even though I thought I already had.

My grandma didn’t want to go to bed the night he died. She and Mom and I stayed up for a few hours, but she categorically refused to leave her recliner. Finally, I offered to stay in the bed with her, and to my surprise, she said "okay". Called my bluff. I haven't the foggiest idea how to comfort her. I know my grandmother better than most, and I am supposed to be the sensitive one in the family, but I'm only good at the small stuff. I have no earthly idea how to fix something this big.

People seem to think I do.

I laid next to her, smelling my grandfather on the pillow, thinking that only a week ago his head was in this same spot, thinking thoughts and breathing breath and emitting warmth. I told my grandmother some of the jokes he used to tell; I told her the funny stories I could remember and I held her hand. Is this helping? I wondered, feeling awkward as I squeezed and talked. I felt utterly useless. I knew there was something more I could do -- something people raised in functional families do. Something my ex’s new girlfriend does instinctively. Behaviors that will forever make up the divide between where I am, and where the happily married couples live with their children in their suburban homes.

But finally, in my alien failure, I just let her sleep. I couldn’t think of anything else to put between her and the pain. I was out of material.

My grandmother, quite simply, didn’t want to survive him. And I knew it. Somehow, I already knew what was coming when she had her stroke the next morning. There were a million excuses; the house was unusually warm, she’d hardly eaten or slept in the last week, and she was emotionally drained. But mostly, all I could think was that I had failed her miserably. That trying doesn't really count for anything.