Breathing Under Water

            by Rachel Hamburg

 

There is something about hospitals that always make me feel like I am trying to breath under water.  Something about the presence of death that weighs down on my lungs like a bag of cold, gray sand.  And so, as I watched my grandfather take his last, slow breaths from the corner of the small, dreary hospital room, the in and out motions of my own chest seemed to mirror those of his frail, disappearing structure.  Rain pattered against the windows and nurses gently shuffled their way between tearful sons and daughters, grandchildren, and one devastated, aching wife.  

            I watched this scene from afar, folding the aged, flowered linen of the window coverings between my fingers, reminding myself to inhale, that I was not the one dying here.  I felt so powerless, my grandfather tiptoeing the line between life and death, me a mere spectator.  He was going to die; cancer had spread from his brain throughout his body, which was now barely discernible beneath his misty green gown, but only a few months ago had been stronger than that of a man twenty years his junior.  I had always imagined that my grandfather would be 150 and dancing circles around a wrinkled, 80-year-old version of myself, his timeless spirit and exuberance for life untainted by so many years and years of wear. 

            But now I stood watching as we all wondered which breath would be his last.  The anticipation of something that I knew was inevitable, yet could not for the life of me believe, seemed to be sucking the life and emotion out of me like a leech.

Waiting for death.  Will this breath be the last?    

And then, just like that, it happened.  There was no formal announcement, no 30-second warning.  I have wondered oftentimes since whether my grandfather knew it was coming, what it felt like from his point of view, or whether he would have wanted a do-over.  But there is nothing I can do except add these inquiries to the long list of questions and expressions that I all of a sudden feel the urge to talk about with my grandpa.

 

I hunched, dreary-eyed, at the kitchen table without an appetite for the bowl of Rice Krispies that I was trying to eat.  Plaguing me were not reminiscences of my grandfather as I would have expected, but rather I could not get over the fact that since my grandfather’s death the day before, I had not yet cried.  And isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when someone you love dies?  More than anything, I felt ashamed, like I was some sort of heartless freak of a grandaughter.  No sticky cheeks, puffy eyelids, or drippy, stuffed-up nose.

I heard my mother’s footsteps and turned to see her in the doorway.  Her appearance was that of a true mourner: unkempt, lost, and afraid.  She drifted over and wrapped her arms around me.  Her mascara from the previous day still stained her face.  As she released a stream of tears, she kissed my cheek. Her lips were sticky with the residue of countless hours of grieving.  I was jealous.

Even as my mother held me, vulnerable and weary, I myself could not cry.  I wanted to, that was not the problem.  While I no longer felt short of breath as I had in grandpa’s hospital room, the same aura of distance that had kept me standing in the corner enveloped me.  I felt like something was wrong with me, and I felt guilty for not paying proper respect to my grandfather.

This guilt grew within me until the night before my grandpa’s funeral, when I had a dream; the unconscious has a way of intervening in the most desperate of times.  I was back in grandpa’s hospital room and his death was imminent.  We were alone.  This time around I had not confined myself to the corner, but was perched on his bedside with my hand wrapped firmly around his, carefully avoiding the wide array of IV tubes and monitors that would not let me pretend for even a second that we were anywhere else.

He struggled to breathe.  Watching him work so hard to speak made my whole body ache.  He had readjusted his position slightly so that his eyes were on me, a piercing crystal blue, dulled now by a cloudy film cast over them.

I tried to smile, to put him at ease; a man about to die should not have to bother with being empathic.  Our eyes were locked in an embrace of their own. I felt like my gaze was keeping him alive.

Grandpa’s breathing was becoming obviously more stressed, but the fighting spirit within him was not yet ready to give in.  Slowly grandpa whispered, “When I’m gone, don’t,” his eyes rolled shut and a flash of panic shot through my body. 

I stood up sharply.  “Grandpa!” I cried, “Grandpa!” He could not be dead, not just like that, I wasn’t ready.

 Ever so lightly he squeezed my hand and continued to speak.  “Don’t cry for me.”

“But grandpa, I…No, don’t…” my voice grew raspy and before I knew it a thick coat of tears glazed my eyes.  I blinked and small droplets began to roll down my cheeks.  Together he and I were so present in this moment and the concept of his death felt unbearably real to me.  Gone.  I felt so powerless as the thought of his absence crawled through my veins.  Finally, through tears I cried, “But I love you.”  It took all of my strength not to bury my head in his chest and wail “Don’t go, no, don’t die, no, no, no.”

That is the last I can remember of the dream.  It ended before he died and I am still not sure if that was for the better.  When I awoke the next morning I just lay there deciphering the blur of the fresh dream, stunned by how real it still felt.

 

Following the funeral service, my mother, her brothers, and I accompanied my grandmother back to her house.  As I entered the threshold, I was suddenly struck by how big the house seemed.  The doorways appeared taller, the staircases longer, even the table and chairs had a daunting aura about them.  I looked at my grandma leaning on Uncle Tim’s arm and I could see that grandpa’s absence was having a similar effect on her perception of the house.  She continued to stand motionless in the dim entryway until Tim guided her into the living room. 

Everyone seemed to have an intense interest in his or her own hands or feet as the minutes crawled by in silence, interrupted only by the occasional sniffle or rustle for tissues.  I watched the room fill up with silence.  If anyone wanted to talk, they didn’t know what to say.  Grandpa had always been the conversation starter.  My mom reached out for my hand, and I reluctantly accepted; I could feel my mother’s vulnerability through her lonely fingers and it made me uneasy.  The anxiety tortured my mind and stomach; I needed out.  Each clack of my heels was magnified by the room’s brittle silence as I slipped into the hallway. 

While I desired to be anywhere else in the world, there was nowhere that I felt I wanted to go.  My feet dragged me heavily through the narrow hall.  Whether as a result of pure muscle memory or fate, I stopped outside of the door to my grandfather’s study.  The door was closed but for a small crack through which I could see the back of his grand desk chair.  Finally, I thought, a place where I wanted to be.

Everything was as he had left it: a total and complete mess.  I smiled as I remembered grandpa tossing books and stacks of paper across the room when in search of a previously misplaced item.  When I was seven he once paid me seven whole dollars to do such dirty work for him.  After two hours of intense excavation, I uncovered the contract agreement, however I nearly lost my sanity in the process.  “Didn’t your mom teach you to clean your room?” I used to tease.   

I tiptoed over to his desk and sank back into his old leather chair.  As a child, this chair would swallow me up in its large, spongy cushions.  With my feet I began to spin the chair in circles, imagining that my grandfather was whirling me around like he used to at what he called, “the speed of lost lunch.” 

Behind the door I spotted my grandfather’s favorite coat.  It had been the signature of winter for me throughout my childhood.  On my tiptoes, I wrestled it off of the hook and felt the scratchy, familiar wool in my hands.  I buried my face in the black satin lining and was surrounded by a thousand smells and memories.  I am three and my grandfather rocks me to sleep on his shoulder, my head nestled between his warm neck and the collar of the jacket.  I am five and my grandfather shields me from the spattering wind beneath its flap.  I am nine and he lets me wear his coat all throughout Thanksgiving dinner.  He puts his chin on my head and rolls up the sleeves from behind.  “That pumpkin pie is too good to end up stuck on my jacket,” he chuckled.  I am thirteen and far too cool for family occasions.  As I brood silently in the corner, my grandfather approaches with an equally stern scowl and remarks, “I know: I can’t believe they forgot the cranberry sauce either.”  I couldn’t help but laugh.

I wrapped the coat around my shoulders and fell into his chair.  From somewhere deep within myself I felt a sudden eruption rushing to the surface.  Breathing in the air of my grandpa, tears began to glide down my cheeks and to drip onto the coat.  Effortlessly I sobbed, my cries coming from a deep, newly opened place within me.  Tears of sadness fell in synch with tears cherishing the joy of love and memories.  After a certain point, I didn’t even know why I was crying so intensely, but it was liberating to let my body—and mind—go.

I heard a soft knock on the door and though my eyesight was blurred, I recognized my mother’s dress through the crack.  “Come in,” I mustered.  

“Hey sweetie, you all right?”  She fumbled in her pocket for a wad of tissues and handed them to me.      

“He used to…his coat, I,” I must have started six or seven sentences without finding the words to finish them.  Instead, I removed the coat from around my shoulders and placed it between my mom and me.  She gently rubbed the fabric with her thumb and then moved her hands to my cheeks. 

Now that my tears were gushing full force as I had so desperately wanted, oddly I felt a little embarrassed as my mother dabbed at my rosy cheeks.  What a sight I must have been pouring my heart and water supply out over a tattered jacket.  Wet or dry-eyed, I just couldn’t seem to be content.  But I guess one can never really be at ease when in mourning.  I noticed suddenly a grave need to de-lint my pants, and I promptly avoided my mother’s gaze, which I knew would be fixed directly on me and only add to my stew of discomfort.

When my pants and sweater were thoroughly picked and my shoes refastened, still crying, now more gently, I picked up my head, trying to gather the grief that my eyes had spilled through the room.   I stopped crying, however I was left with the feeling of relief my tears had released within me.

“C’mon,” my mom said.  She smiled slightly, as if it were stiff from disuse over the past few weeks.  “Your grandmother has started telling the wedding story.”  She didn’t have to ask me twice; her and grandpa’s wedding extravaganza had been my favorite bedtime tale as a little girl.  I wiped my eyes and stood up, following my mother out the door.  On my way out I carefully replaced grandpa’s coat on the hook and put my face to it one more time.