I once wrote: “Hospitals are where people go to die.” Not always true of course. Poignant? For sure for me. The thought arose for me when I was twelve years old. My beloved grandfather had stayed at our home for two or three months; dying of cancer. For the first eight years of my life, my family lived in an upstairs flat above “Pap”. He was my refuge at times. He was a widower. I’d sneak to his kitchen by the back stairs in search of stinky cheese. I always loved the smells of food from his flat. Yes, I’d revel in limburger cheese. Or, aged brick cheese. He also had sausages. He had the first TV we ever watched. Such viewings were accompanied by bowls of candy raisins.

At any rate my mother was taxed with caring for Grandpa. He spent the last weeks of his life in my brother’s upstairs bedroom. At the end he was taken to the hospital. It was hard to watch. I stayed in my room. When he and his attendants were outside I sneaked to a window overlooking our front walk. There he was; flat on his back wrapped in a white blanket. For an instant, just before he was placed in an ambulance, he looked up, saw me, smiled and gave a slight wave of his hand. I placed my hand on the window pane but I cannot tell you if he reacted; tears blocked my view. That was the last time I saw him. In those days children generally were not allowed as visitors at hospitals. But, that is where he went to die in my mind.

Another saying about death that stuck with me was “Everyone gets dead sometime” from a John Wayne movie. Reality! If you prefer another thought, I remember reading a quote from a philosopher type who basically said that although he knew full well that we all will die, in the far back of his mind he nursed the thought that he might be the first exception in history.

I never found death to be creepy as in a scary movie. My other grandfather owned a funeral home. I visited him there at times. He’d take us to church in his big Cadillac; gas pedal to the metal “to blow out the carbon”. I played up and down the stairs of the business and around the casket displays with my brothers and cousins. I remember being at wakes and funerals at an early age. I believe I was sixteen when I started working there. Carried caskets, cleaned, cut grass etc. I went on my first corpse pickup within a year. (I believe I washed my hands an extra time or two that night.)

All in all death is not scary movie fear. Yet, it is profoundly sad when it hits home. I found the devilish part to be that it is like a curtain being dropped. Never to be raised again. Ever. That loved person is gone. Forever. Sudden and jarring. There is no getting around that fact. No denying. You need to grieve. You will grieve. You should grieve. But, you will recover. You must recover. You will get to a point in which you are bathed in memories. Healthy, happy memories. Your life still needs to be lived. Towards your final curtain of sadness for a family who has come to love and cherish you. Decades from now. When you are a beloved grandmother or grandfather.