Life Worth Living

It's all so heavy and complicated and heartbreaking — but beautiful and joyful too.

Last week my grandma called to say that my grandpa had decided to come home under hospice care, after spending over a month moving back and forth between the hospital and a cardiac rehab facility. He had maybe a stroke/maybe a heart attack last April and his body has been beating him up since then, especially since Christmas. It wasn't a surprise to hear it was time for hospice. I've been staring off into the middle distance for who knows how many hours over the past many weeks, asking myself "Is my grandpa at the end of his life? And what does that mean? And how could that be?" Tom Hogan has been a Great Smoky Mountains river boulder as long as I've been alive. The endless rushing water has smoothed him over — but he splits the rapids in two. He is the closest thing I have ever felt to eternal.

I don't know how to talk about it. Partly because I don't know how to talk about anything, really, as it happens to me in real time. I've never known how to do that. And, honestly, I don't really want to know. I prefer to sit in the quiet with my feelings and my thoughts and feel them and think them, and feel them and think them, and feel them and think them, all on my own. And when I've felt them and thought them long enough, turned them over and over and examined them from all angles, in every light, and I have a story to tell, that's when I can talk about it.

And my grandpa isn't only my Great Smoky Mountains river boulder. He is so many things to so many people that I love in the oldest, deepest part of my heart. Oftentimes, when I tell a story, it becomes THE story, because I told it in writing, to a lot of people, which makes it the loudest story. My stories can get so loud, sometimes, that they can crush other people's own stories, in their own brains and hearts. I want everyone who knows and loves my grandpa to feel the full weight of the end of his life in whatever ways they need to, without my words about his life taking over the conversation because I sent them out to thousands of people.

Today I'm thinking about one story, and one story is okay to tell, I think.

One time, after years and years of talking about it, we rode snowmobiles into the middle of Yellowstone National Park. The first day, we went on a guided tour. And then, we went adventuring all on our own. It was the middle of winter, more snow than we'd ever seen surrounding us on all sides, a bright blue cloudless sky, mountains and frozen trees. We hopped off to eat a snack and drink some water and gawk at the view. My grandpa pulled out a little video camera I'd brought along on our trip and pointed it at me. I heard the beep that told me he was recording.

He said, "Heather?" in that kind of Southern accent that feels like a song. He was grinning. Really, really grinning.

I said, "Yeah?"

He said, "Why don't you tackle Mamaw."

I turned to look at her, standing beside me, up to her knees in snow. I dove at her and she yelped, and then we collided and fell face first into the blanket of snow. “Well, now, how are you gonna get us back up?” my grandma shrieked, laughing almost as loud as my grandpa. We finally got ourselves standing. My grandpa laughed so hard, so long, that by the time my grandma stomped over to him to try to tackle him into the snow, his laugh-tears were frozen on his face. She dove at him and he just caught her and wrapped her up in a hug.

I have my grandpa's nose, his eyes, every word he ever told me tucked away in my heart, a million billion gazillion stories, and the memory of that afternoon shining so bright on this day. My Great Smoky Mountains river boulder booming out his laughter to the Grand Tetons, holding tight to my grandma, his eyes twinkling with mischief and love. Even now, when my grandma sends me photos of him in his hospital gown, his eyes look just like that. I know he's in pain, but his heart is still so full, for her most of all.

I don't know how to talk about my grandpa. And I don't know how to talk about anything that's not my grandpa, not right now. It's all so heavy and complicated and heartbreaking — but beautiful and joyful too, in the way all things are that make life worth living.