DadaMama: The Sun Proceeds Unmoved

Last Wednesday I arrived home late in the evening, around bedtime, fresh from the job fair for teachers whose contracts have not been renewed. I was happy with myself and feeling content after picking up dinner at Chic-Fil-A (health food!). My chances of getting a job, I thought, are good.

But Dashing Husband greeted me with sad news--his paternal grandfather had suffered a heart attack and was dying. We have to go, he said. We have to go tonight. I packed while he carted the dogs off to a friend's house (thank you, Lorena!) and the children gorged themselves on Spongebob. Dashing Husband was worried and drawn. It was late; we were all tired.

We arrived in town at midnight. The children were asleep, despite the novelty of going for a car ride after dark in their pajamas. We'd be staying with Dashing Husband's parents; the kids call them Nanny and Grand-daddy. We unloaded the car and put the kids to bed. For once they did not argue.

Dashing Husband shared his fears with me over cold slices of pizza at his mom's kitchen table. Grandpa hasn't been doing well this past year, he said. Maybe it's his time. I wanted to be supportive, but always feel helpless in the face of my husband's tears. I'm sorry, I said. Over and over, hoping to smooth the kinks in his heart, the lines on his face. Wishing I could make it all go away.

The next morning I stayed with the kids. Dashing Husband went to the hospital. Grandpa was not going to make it. He's old and frail, said Dashing Husband. It's his time. Knowing this did not make it any easier to let go of this man he'd known his whole life. I'm sorry, I said. And Dashing Husband replied, It's not your fault. Not that it was anyone's.

Last night we went to the beach at sunset. The children ran off into the surf, giggling, and it struck me that in the midst of a life that was ending, many others were only beginning. How? I thought. How does the sun continue to rise? The tide to come in and go out again? There is something healing about the sea, something big and constant, but full of tiny miracles.

These are long thoughts to have in the presence of small children--one cannot sustain them long around such wild abandon. They were splashing, running, shrieking. Then my niece found a tiny starfish, all burnt sienna and curling arms in the palm of her hand. Then she found another. And another.

Tiny miracles.

Grandpa died last night. I don't know what time it happened, only that the previous day he'd been disconnected from his ventilator and finally slipped away. Peacefully. We're grateful for that, and grateful that he is no longer the prisoner of a body that's failing him. He will be missed. I didn't know him well, but my husband's grief is mine as well. It hurts to see him hurt.