"a mell of a hess"

I don’t know how to explain what happened with my grandfather. My dad’s side of the family taught me at an early age that life is messy, families far from perfect. My dad’s parents provided countless opportunities for me and my brother, and our cousins, too (even when their daughter refused to speak to them.) I saw Europe, Costa Rica, and Washington, D.C. on trips with them. But, they also caused tensions, quite frequently. They sometimes refused to share holidays, and pressured my dad for decades to spend Christmas Eve at “their” church not “ours.” 

My grandfather, before his Alzheimer’s/dementia, was a sweet, charming, self-made, hardworking man. He taught our dad a lot, who taught us a lot of those same things.

I read a box full of love letters he wrote his future wife, my grandmother, during his last year of college. He spent the summer clerking at the state capitol, accepted to law school, madly in love with his future bride who was living in her tiny hometown. He never went to law school though; he needed a job to support them in their new life together. Over the years, out of love, my grandfather became a push-over, never able to truly stand up to his wife, or daughter, and I don’t mean that disrespectfully: he was a loving, devoted husband. But in many ways, he never “wore the pants” as my dad would say. And, I’ll admit, I share many of the bossy, plan-making, fiercely independent traits of his wife, my grandmother. 

After my grandmother died at age 65, my grandfather was a shell of his former self. Their lives were so woven together he was not sure how to function without her. Alcohol and depression were easy to turn to, and dementia advanced. His formerly estranged daughter, who rarely visited Texas, moved in with him. A lot happened, to say the least.

This summer was a mess. My dad wrestled with grief and dismay at the condition to which is father had sunk. He researched private detectives and sought advice from doctors. My grandfather was rushed to America in urgent need of medical care. There were some heated family arguments.

Years ago, legal papers were signed to prevent anyone but my dad from having financial access to my grandfather. My dad had the final say, medical and financial power of attorney. Nothing my grandfather’s daughter or grandchildren or anyone else said or did legally mattered…and then, a plane crashed.

There were no flames, just an enormous thud as the metal crashed to the ground and the plane hit the earth. Bright blue paint chipped and scattered on the granite gravel, and it stayed there for months. There was a visible mess that took months to fade. Paramedics and authorities and friends did what they could, but in the end, my dad physically could not be saved. No life remained.

It felt the same way with my grandfather.

Hugging him a few days after my dad died was excruciating. His voice, his mannerisms – they reeked of my dad. I felt light-headed, but I remained calm for his sake. He remembered what his doctor’s had told him a few days ago, but couldn’t say it in words. “We got some very sad news about Tomo, didn’t we?” It was all wrong.

I still don’t quite understand what’s happened with my grandfather. My brain can’t wrap itself around the facts, sometimes, because they just don’t make sense.

I have prayed for wisdom and clarity and a whole army of our friends have done the same.

We did all we could, just like the paramedics. We gave it everything we had, trying to fight for what our Dad wanted for his Dad. We reported multiple crimes to the proper authorities. We consulted doctors, lawyers, even other family members, and at times, there was hope.

One afternoon, just before sunset, we got word that my grandfather was gone, in Mexico – we were not in charge anymore, it was against doctor’s orders, it was essentially kidnapping. Our hands were tied.

We made ourselves sick with the details. I believe the devil tried like crazy to break us – my low point was screaming at my brother on the phone over details that did not matter. I shook with anger. After a few months of this craziness and discovering more and more wrongdoing, we were beginning to lose our sanity.

In 2004, my mom promised her mother-in-law that she’d take care of her family. My grandmother faced death from lung cancer that had spread to her brain. Months later, my grandmother fell in to a coma. Her body was holding on too long. My mom repeated her promise to look after my grandfather and their family over my grandmother’s quiet body, and less than 24 hours later, she was gone from the Earth, peacefully, quietly.

Legally, because my dad died, we cannot care for my grandfather. We can care about him, but not for him. My mom has no legal rights. The new power of attorney refused to allow us any access to medical records or personal information. We are forced to watch erratic, rash behavior rule, and financial dishonesty to run amok. It is, technically, the law, and since my grandfather is in another country, there’s not much more to be done.

I don’t quite understand what happened with my grandfather, how this all happened so suddenly. But, in many ways, I don’t understand what’s happened with my dad, either. The plane crash left a mess that was visible for months. It was unexpected. People fought and tried to save him, but-there was a huge mess. In the end, peace comes when we let go, when we stop resisting, when we admit we are not in control. We take a deep breath and realize God is bigger than us and has us in his hands. It is very much the same with our grandfather, through the check fraud and the elder abuse and a giant freaking mess, we found that through my dad’s death we had lost control. We did our best, but the true peace has come when we laid down the fight.

I don’t understand what happened with my grandfather, how things spun out of control so quickly. But I do understand that there is a lot I don’t understand these days, and that I won’t always have all the answers and we can’t always solve everyone’s problems.

The last time I stood on the runway, the paint was there. But as the wind blows and the rains fall and time passes, I am sure much of the paint has gone away. Reminders of the mess are fading and will continue to fade. What is left are memories, and miracles, and grace, and gratitude for a life fully lived, with more love and adventure and fullness than many.

I don’t understand why there was a crash, and I hate the mess that followed. But I am hopeful, even certain, that the mess, well, it’s being washed away.