I haven’t
written anything since my Grandpa died.
He
died on June 7th, today is September 21st. I’m going to my Grandparents
house tomorrow for the first time since he died. He won’t be sitting
in his chair. He won’t be first in line for dinner. He won’t
play cards.
Some
things about the house will be different, some things will be exactly
the same. I don’t know which will hurt more.
I
know it hurts every time I see my Grandma.
I
know it hurt watching him die in the hospital. I went as much as I could;
I knew it would hurt more later if I didn’t. I wanted to be there
and hold his hand and talk to him. I couldn‘t always tell if he
could hear me.
I
didn’t really write anything then either, in those two weeks he
was dying. I love to write, but that’s not why I do it. I can‘t
not do it. I’m compelled.
I
have two circling, competing beliefs on this compulsion to write.
One
is a from an old quote about turning one’s worst moments into profit,
the other is using my writing to heal those worst moments. Two sides
of the same coin, really, and so far I haven’t made a dime writing
anything, but one day I will, and I’ll have to deal with exploiting
moments like this one.
When
my Grandpa was dying, I knew these things. I had already written myself
better before. I had these mental blocks, negative thoughts, that were
ruining and threatened to end my life. When nothing else worked, I sat
down and wrote myself out of it. It took a couple of months, but it
worked.
Grandpa
didn’t have months, he had days. And as powerful as my writing
is, as effective as it is, as much as it can change the world, it only
works on me.
I
can’t write him out of a hospital bed.
So,
while he was dying, I didn’t write. And whenever I’m not writing,
I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about structure and character,
about plot and setting, about place and perspective.
Specifically,
I was thinking about a scene.
Two
years ago, after he had his heart attack, I went to visit him in the
hospital with my dad, and Grandpa said, “I’m having a hell
of a time, Kris,” and I sort of froze and had to concentrate on
breathing and staying upright; the toughest guy I’ve ever known
doesn’t lie in a hospital gown connected to tubes and discuss his
fucking feelings.
And
there I was, standing there again in the same hospital, playing that
scene over and over in my head, and watching everything about him slow
down and die. He couldn’t even tell me what he was feeling this
time. He could barely squeeze my hand.
I
wrote his eulogy. I volunteered, but I had to do it; was compelled.
I
was already arranging it in my head at the end, but before he was gone.
I won’t feel bad about that. Every day for two weeks I watched
his eighty-two year old body struggle just to breathe, I wasn’t
going to pretend he was walking out of there.
Grandpa
would’ve approved, anyway; he was always practical and prepared.
And
then he died.
I
typed the eulogy, practiced it once, read it in the church, and it was
done. And I couldn’t even visit him in the hospital anymore.
How
could I write about that?
I
couldn’t write that all I wanted to do was visit him again while
he was sick and dying because that was better than having him dead.
So I didn’t.
When
I write, I don’t make anything up, the words are already there,
I’m just excavating.
A
story, or a piece, or whatever it is, it comes to me as a whole, as
one bright image that encompasses everything it has to say, and I need
to pull it apart, translate it and craft it, until anyone else who reads
the words gets that same burst I did when I first discovered them.
I
didn’t make any of this up, and I didn’t just think of it
as I typed. It came to me on June 7th when he died while I was holding
his hand and watching my Grandma cry. It came to me then, but it hurt.
It hurt so much I couldn’t arrange the words right for three months.
Now
that I have, it still hurts, but I feel a little better. You hurt, then
you heal. Writing is how I get through things; I was crying when I typed
the first line, but I’m not now.
