HOW GRANDPA DIED

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• November 17, 2015

Upon returning from a trip to Puerto Rico with my best friend, I had a sense something was not right.  My folks, who had originally offered to pick us up from the airport, had said they couldn’t come without explanation.  Two days prior, when speaking with them via telephone, my brother came on the phone (which was odd in itself), seeming like he wanted to tell me something, but didn’t.  The sixth sense was tingling.  There was a disturbance in the force, but what?

When I returned back home, it was late and, my dad said to me in the hallway, “we didn’t want to tell you while you were still away, but grandpa died.”
A pause.  Then I said, “which grandpa?”
“Grandpa George.”
This was a bit of a relief.  The death of his father would have been far worse news.  We weren’t close with my Mom’s dad.  It was a strange feeling.  I certainly wasn’t happy about it, but it was almost like someone else’s grandpa died, who I was vaguely familiar with.
“Mom’s in Florida already, I’m leaving in the morning.”
“I wanna go.”
“No, you’ll stay here…” My parents believed it to be a waste of money to fly us down to Florida for the funeral services.  That pretty much sums up our relationship with the man who my mom called dad.
“Okay…”
Then my Dad put his hand on my shoulder, and said, “are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
Then I went to my room, and unpacked.  I was mad at myself for not crying.  Shouldn’t I be more sad? But my grandma who was married to my grandpa for most her life said about her husband dying, “I didn’t shed a tear.”  She brags about it, actually, like a badge of honor.  I suspect she hated him for many years, his death being her ultimate freedom.  His demise was almost hers as well.  How it happened exactly, well, every one in the family speculates their own version…

Three days had gone by, and her neighbor Hugh (which my grandma pronounces as “huge”) had not seen his elderly neighbors in their dilapidated trailer home.  This was odd.  Hugh (Huge), a family man my grandma refers to as “colored but nice,” noticed the piled up mail, and the car in the driveway.  His sixth sense stirred, and he went to investigate.  He knocked and called out their names, then he heard the faint cries from my grandma calling for help.  He broke in.  My grandpa was dead on the bed, my grandma was naked on the bathroom floor lying in a shallow pool of water.

Hugh (Huge) called 911 and carried my grandma out.  She doesn’t remember what happened, and even if she did, my grandma’s memory is not to be trusted.  My grandpa died of a heart attack, and died face down in the bed.  It is believed my grandma went to fetch his heart pills, but they had a shabby washing machine which my grandma had to run a hose through the bathroom window in order for it to function.  This hose leaked, and my grandma took quite a bad spill, hitting her head, knocking her unconscious.  Why she was naked is unknown.

In another day or two, it’s like likely my grandma would have died as well.  Thanks to a good neighbor, the universe allowed my grandma a second chance at life.  A life without her husband.  The man she spent most her life with.  The man she “didn’t shed a tear for.”  A life she was waiting for.

I couldn’t say I felt genuine affection towards my grandfather, my feelings were that of fear and mistrust towards him, so my grieving was brief.  Still, I called up my job at Captain Bill’s where I worked as a caterer, and used my grandpa’s death as an excuse to not work that weekend.  I wasn’t lying.

Of course we weren’t going to have a party while my parents were away.  That would be bad taste.  My parents were always worried about leaving the house when we were teenagers, thinking we’d throw a huge party and someone would throw a chair through a window or something.  I’m not sure what kind of parties my parents went to as teenagers to think I’d have such an epic party.  None the less, my brother and I both invited a couple people over, just to smoke weed and watch some television.

One of my brothers buddies brought with him salvia.  For those of you who don’t know what salvia is, it’s completely legal and can be bought in most head shops.  It’s supposed to be an incense, but people do smoke it, and for several minutes you trip the fuck out.  Probably the main reason salvia was never made illegal, is because people rarely do it twice.  It’s a terrible drug.

We were sitting in my brother’s claustrophobic room, six of us, and we were all already really stoned.  At least I was, and I assume they were too.  I was apprehensive about salvia.  I read a bunch on the internet, and the reviews were mostly terrible.  I would let them try it first.  I was in a room full of willing guinea pigs for the drug.  Observe, then decide.  My brother’s friend packed it into the bong and smoke it.  Then he started giggling so hard for a couple minutes.  But not a fun giggle, like someone was tickling him, and he just wanted them to stop.  He pulled at his hoodie, bugging out, and after several minutes, he said he felt like things were crawling all over him, and he described it as the opposite of fun.  I opted out.  I didn’t fancy myself in the best mental state, replaying how grandpa died in my head, wondering if I was a terrible person for not grieving.  I didn’t even want to watch them bug out again so I went downstairs to watch Saturday Night Live.

One best friends tried it shortly after I left the room, he fell the the floor, and had a seizure-like-salvia-induced attack.  This lasted a couple minutes, and my brother and our friends told him to calm down (which wasn’t helping).  The effects of salvia don’t last long, so in a few minutes, he headed downstairs where I was watching Weekend Update, laughing at Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.  My buddy had a lost look in his eyes, and I asked him if he was okay.  He glared at the television, then hurried to the kitchen.  I followed.  He ran to the kitchen faucet and drank from it.

“Dude, are you okay?  You’re freaking me out.”
“I have to get some air,” he said, going to the sliding door to the backyard, he yanked at it, and he couldn’t understand why it wasn’t opening (it was locked), and he yanked so hard, he broke the damn door.  We went out on the deck.  The air was frigid, even for November.  His face was pale, and I let him take a few deep breaths.
“Dude… what the fuck happened?”
He explained that after taking a hit of salvia, he went to the floor, and the universe started coming apart in layers, like an onion.  He said his mom was telling him he had to keep it together.  He had to will the universe from falling apart.  While this lasted 90 seconds, it felt much longer.  Then, when he left the room, and when saw Tina Fey and Amy Poehler on the television, they told him he needed to calm down.
“I can’t really explain it,” he said, “it was horrible.”
I didn’t need him to explain it.  It sounded all too familiar to me, like a panic attack, which I had on the regular, no drugs required.  They all agreed salvia was pretty awful, so we just let ourselves unwind and watched television for the night.

The following day, when I talked to my mom on the phone, she asked me how everything was in New York.  I said fine, and left out the part where my friend saved the universe from falling apart on a salvia trip and broke our back door.  I really wanted to see her.  To see how she was doing.  But she seemed absolutely fine, down in Florida with her brothers and sister, all six of them seeming to be grieving as much or as little as I was.  All six of them have always defended their father, saying he was a creative genius, and all six of them have tales of harrowing abuse.  “He loved us in his own way,” my mom would say.  When I talked to my cousin she asked me if I cried.  I said no.  She said she didn’t either.  I thought that was the worst fate anyone could ever have… dying, and no one, not even your family cries for you.  But I suppose that’s a fate you seal yourself when you’re living.

My grandfather was the most misogynistic and racist person I’ve ever known.  I thought it was ironic a black man would be the one to save my grandma.  From that day on, she would live peacefully in a much nicer home that wasn’t a trailer, watching game shows, playing crosswords and bingo, waiting for her next visitor, so she can tell you the same stories over and over, like a record player on repeat, not realizing she already told you that same story multiple times that day.  She is happy though.  And healthy.

Salvia would be a drug I’d never try, nor have a desire to.  The drug alienates the user, giving them a heavy dose of fear and mistrust… much like my grandfather.  He was a control freak, with rage issues, and had a troublesome childhood.  I think for him, the universe was always tearing itself apart, and he got so caught up in trying to keep it together, it destroyed him, thus destroying the relationships he had with his wife and six children, eleven grandchildren, and perhaps any friends (I’d never known him to have friends nor have I heard any stories of him having friends).  We’re all fated for the big sleep.  My grandpa was afraid of it.  He had a stroke before I was born, and the doctor told him he had to quit smoking cigarettes or he would die, and he quit, cold turkey.  My grandfather was a feared man, but the grim reaper petrified him.  But his fear was misplaced.  He should have feared how his death would be perceived.  Without tears.  Without that dreaded cold lonesome feeling that comes when parting with a loved one.

My mom and her siblings have long forgiven my grandfather for being an overall shitty father.  Forgiveness —a trait they certainly didn’t learn from him.  When I went back to work, people kept telling me they were sorry, and I almost forgot why.  I shared with them the story of how my grandma almost died too.

“Your poor grandfather,” my boss said, “that’s so sad.”

“It is,” I said, though I was thinking more about his life than his death.