Grandfather's Last Words

Today we buried grandfather. He died in his sleep three nights ago
and when grandmother awoke and found him lying in bed, breathless,
mouth open like a drowned fish, she called my mother and told us. She
was crying, mother told me, when she called, and mother left to go over
and comfort grandmother. She called from their house later on to speak
with father about making funeral arrangements.

I took a walk in the woods alone except for our two dogs, and I cried
a little, but in truth I wasn't altogether very sad. Grandfather was
old, as old as a tree in the forest, and it was his time to go. I don't
want to sound like I didn't like my grandfather, or that I was not
close to him, for I did like him and I felt fairly close to him, but I
feel mostly sad for grandmother, who dedicated her entire life in
taking care of her husband; now she will be all alone (Though, mother
told me last night that grandmother will be moving in with us after the
funeral.)

There are a lot of calls to the house now from mother's brothers and
sisters, and an uneasy silence has fallen across the yard- though
everyone is busily moving, they speak in whispers. Everyone seems very
sad and full of shadows, and I watch them fascinated by the
change.

I don't know what grandfather would think about this. He was a paradox
of a man, a religious intellectual, who criticized society as a whole
and believed in the immediate return of Jesus Christ. In part, I
admired him for his beliefs- he was so convinced in what he believed,
while I have little faith in either religion or society. Sometimes I
wished I could be like him and trust in a higher benevolent power. In
the very dark back of my mind I suppose I did believe in some form of
the Christian God, if only because it was planted there in my early
childhood by my family. I resented this too, and all together was very
conflicted by my overriding atheistic view of the world, and the small
inner voice which told me there was something greater beyond me- a
divine providence which governed this world and myself in it, a heaven
and a hell ruled by apposing forced that offered on the one hand
eternal salvation and on the other doom and punishment.

I didn't see my grandfather until the wake which was held at the
church in town. When I did see him, I wanted to only look briefly one
last time upon him and then turn away, but when I stepped up to the
coffin with him inside I was compelled to look hard upon him; there he
was, my grandfather, silenced in death when all his life he'd had
something to say - often annoying my father by the amount he talked.
Grandfather's skin contrasted greatly with his black suite in the black
coffin. His face was large and round, bullish, with a big head, his
wisps of white hair a thin cloud bank far back on his wide
forehead.

I didn't learn until later in life that grandfather's own father
committed suicide while grandfather was still a child. There had been
an adulterous relationship between my great grandfather and a women,
and when his wife found out, my great grandfather had shot himself in
the head. Grandfather's family thought he blamed himself, but it was
never spoken of. I thought of the unknown pains that my grandfather
must have gone through in life, and wondered if he felt the same
hardships as myself, though we were so very different.

My father took my hand and led me away, outside of the church and we
stood together alone and silent until father started talking about
horse racing and his plans for the track he was building on our
property.

The next day we laid grandfather in the ground and the pastor said a
few words. Family had flown in from across the country, but most would
be leaving in the morning to get back to jobs and obligations.

We drove over to grandmother's house and helped her gather together a
few essential items and then headed out of town toward our house in the
foothills of Noble Mountain.

That night the shadows gathered around the setting sun that went down
like a flickering torch upon a forgotten horizon. I sat outside near
the basement and watched the sun sink low and thought about how time
burns away, how lives and memories are buried, and how people change,
forget, and leave.

In the evening grandmother came downstairs. She had an envelop in her
hand, which she gave over to me. "Here. Grandfather was saving this for
you, " she said.

I took the envelop. "What is it? " I asked.

Grandmother shook her head. "Some last words, I guess. I'm not sure
myself. All I know is that he gave it to me a few weeks ago and told me
that I should pass it on to you when it was time."

"Should I open it? " I asked.

"When you want to, dear, " said Grandmother. "But when you're alone.
Now good-night. I must get some rest, I'm so awfully tired."

Grandmother went upstairs and left me alone. I went over and sat down
on the side of the bed. I tore open the end of the envelop and pulled
out a letter which I unfolded and read:

Grandson. When you sleep you must find me. Though my body lies buried
beneath the earth, I will find you in your room and stand beside you in
the darkness. I will know you as you know yourself, through the power
of my faith I will take a stairway through you and feel your spirit. I
will know you.

Tonight, when I come, I will take you with me. There is a stairway
through the back of my head which I will lead you up, and a long
hallway without windows or decorations, that I will lead you down. At
the end there will be a door, that only I can find, and I will lead you
through this door.

Beyond the door there is something I must show you. I have kept it
there since I was a small child, and once you see it you will know that
all I have believed through my life is in accordance with it; it is
both jailed inside me, and is my jailor, and when tonight you sleep and
come with me, so too will it have the same charge over you.

Know that I love you, grandson, and soon my spirit will live through
you. You will know me entirely, and I will know you.

That is how the letter read. It seemed very strange to me and I didn't
know what to think of it. It didn't sound how my grandfather would have
talked, but surely it must have been from him. I was scared thinking of
what he had written in the letter, and I thought about reading the
letter again but the idea was too frightening. Without realizing it I
had cast the letter down on the floor and I dared not pick it up.

I checked the clock near the bed; it was getting close to 10 p.m. I
thought to go upstairs and make some coffee, I thought I would not like
to sleep at all tonight, but all at once a great drowsiness came over
me, flooded over me as if a mighty presence had surged with the shadows
and covered me; I inhaled it; it swarmed like angry bees inside of me.
All energy left my body, and I fell there onto my bed.

And grandfather came to me and lead me through the darkness guided by
an invisible light up a stairway dark and fell which my legs did not
move upon, which wasn't there at all, but surely was, and more real
than what any empirical data of this world could define, and through
the long dark hallway he lead me, unto the door which only he could
find, and through he took me.

And I saw it! Oh, God, I saw it! And it had me! All at once it was in
me, consuming, rebuilding, eating, pecking, so I was reformed.

And in the morning, my grandfather was reborn upon the bed where I
slept.