Home for Grandpa one last time

SHEBOYGAN FALLS, Wis. — They say the last thing to go for a person when they are dying is their hearing. I always thought it was a bit of a fluke until I walked in to his hospice room on Wednesday night.
There he was, quietly laying in bed sleeping while Grandma, Mom, aunts and uncle sat there by his side. I didn’t expect him to acknowledge I was in the room. From the sounds of it he had been pretty much out of it for the better part of the day. He’d been that way really since Sunday.
Grandma wanted to tell him anyway.
“Harold, Josh and Courtney are here to see you.”
His head picked up. His eyes almost opened and he looked like he wanted to say something.
He knew I was there.
It stopped me right in my tracks that night and just thinking about it stops me cold now too. It was pretty much the last time Grandpa was awake.
For three full days I joined my family in Suite 3 of the Sharon S. Richardson Community Hospice to be there for my grandfather. We watched movies, turned on the news and even the show “The Haunting” for Mom and Grandpa to watch. It was their show.
It was then when we all began the process of grieving.
Mom and I would got caught up on what I was up to in Maine and when I was coming home next month for my brother-in-laws wedding. It was good to get caught up for once without having to use the cell phone.
It was hard to sit there at the foot of his bed, look at Grandpa and think that the man who helped me through my geometry homework in middle school, who helped me build my two Pine Wood Derby cars for Cub Scouts and who would chase my cousins and I around the house as children by becoming a Frankenstein-like, playful “Monster” was now the man who could do little more than sleep.
He defied every nurse’s guess as to how long he’d make it. Many figured Thursday would be his last day, but that was three days short of the two weeks he told the staff he’d “be cured” and be able to go home. He was a fighter. His mind just didn’t know when to stop.
For three days we sat there in the hospice room, comforting each other and patiently awaiting for the time when Grandpa had decided to move on. There were moments filled with tears, others with joy. It was good to laugh, especially at Brian’s jokes during the late nights hours on Friday. It was also good to cry.
On Saturday my family made the trip from Sheboygan to Madison so we could attend my sister’s graduation from the University of Wisconsin. For months I felt awful that I would not make it home for that special occasion, but luckily we all had the time to spend cheering on my sister as she walked across the stage at the Kohl Center to shake hands with school officials she’s never met and grab her diploma cover.
We all felt guilty about making the trip knowing Grandpa was in such poor shape, but he would have been upset with us all if we had sat there in his apartment and watched him lie there while Natalie graduated. We had to go; it’s what he would have wanted.
When I last saw Grandpa later that night, I held his thin hand, told him how much he meant to me and hoped for my family’s sake — especially my grandmother — that his time would come soon. He wouldn’t have wanted to hold on forever, subjected solely to sleeping. Grandma was tired from the late nights and long hours of holding on to Grandpa and waiting.
When my flight back home reached its layover in Baltimore on Sunday morning, I turned on my phone to hear a message from my dad. Grandpa had passed shortly after 7 a.m., shortly after the wheels when up on my flight to Baltimore.
Actually, Grandpa passed away at 7:15 a.m. on May 17. For the man who loved a good puzzle it was an almost fitting time for the old engineer to go to a better place.
The waiting could finally end. It was a relief for all of us. I could hear that in Mom’s voice later that afternoon when I called to see how she was doing.
I was just happy that Grandpa knew I made it home to see him one last time.