R.I.P.

This is an unflattering picture of my grandfather.  I took it June 14th, not quite two weeks ago.

He died this morning.

I can't say it was unexpected -- he had COPD, and his lack of proper oxygen certainly didn't help his failing heart, liver, and kidneys.  Note the toilet chair in front of him; that was about as far as he could move before utter exhaustion.

My uncle is relieved.

I'm devastated.

See, this man raised me -- he's biologically my grandfather, but he's played the role of my father since I was born.  I spent every other weekend and all school vacations with him, he took care of me and my mother financially when she couldn't, I stayed with him the many times my mom was admitted to the hospital, and he adopted me when she died.  I lived with him between the ages of 13 and 22, moved out for a couple years, moved back in for a year, moved out for a few more, and then moved back in again.

The problem is, as is often the case with death, is the course of our last interaction.  And, as is also often the case, it was fairly negative.

See, I work overnights, and then I do four or five hours at my internship.  When I come home, I go straight to bed to try to get a full seven hours before my next twelve hours of work.  Yesterday, I got home after 1pm, so I was lucky if I was asleep by 2.

At 7pm, I wake up to my grandfather yelling my name.  As I groggily roll out of bed, he yells it again, so naturally, I start to feel a little alarmed.  I rush downstairs and ask what's wrong.  His response?

"Feed the cats."

.......... He can't be serious.

I spend a few minutes reminding him that I sleep during the day, and that the cats have access to crunchy food all day long.  That there is no reason to wake me up two hours before my alarm to feed them; they can wait.  Regardless, I feed the damn cats their stupid, supplementary canned food, all the while mumbling angrily under my breath and slamming dishes and utensils around the kitchen.

As my foot landed on the first stair of the staircase, Grampa says, "Wait.  I want an ice cream cone."

Still irritated -- and more so, now, because there shouldn't even be ice cream in the house (diabetes) -- I throw together a vanilla ice cream cone and hand it to him.  I don't respond when he thanks me.  Then, something weird happens.

He apologizes.

I realize that, if you're reading this, you probably don't know my grandfather.  But he's the really old school, "suck it up and stop being a pussy" type.  Of course, he's an army vet, and he's gone through three heart attacks, a stroke, open heart surgery, prostate cancer, emphysema, and all the crap at the end without batting an eyelash.  I've seen him cry once, ONCE, in 27 years, and it wasn't even when his sister died, or when my mom died, but rather, when the stray cat he adopted died.

So when he says, "Sorry for bothering you, I just have no energy," I'm too flabbergasted to even process it, and I just go upstairs.  Thinking about it now, I'm trying not to get trapped in the guilt trap of realizing that I really must have been being an asshole to make him say that.  It's really hard not to wallow in the awful idea that the last thing I ever did was make him feel bad because he wanted an ice cream and couldn't get it himself.

Sigh.  No matter how many times you go through it, this stuff never gets any easier.