The dead and the dying

The rehab center is on Boise's western outskirts, out in a new business park. I got a bike from Rosemary, and in the afternoon rode out to see Grandpa, sticking to the fresh, white sidewalk and staying out of the four-lane Overland Road. The fast traffic is lethal. In quick succession I dodged a dead robin, a dead mouse, and a dead mourning dove….

On the way back, I had to stop for the light at the Cloverdale intersection, where the road crosses an irrigation ditch. In the middle of the street a barn swallow was down, half smashed but one wing still fluttering. A dozen other swallows swooped through the air over the road, and in turn one after another came down alone and low and hovered over the mortally wounded bird…. As if to help? In empathy and distress? The flock seemed agitated, but of course they were helpless, as was I. The cars passed over the dying bird, until the light changed and a large black pick-up came to a stop over top of it, and the other swallows pulled up and away….

Grandpa was in physical therapy when I arrived. I peeked in the gym: he was in his wheelchair holding a badminton racket and batting a large red balloon back and forth with a young man in khakis and a polo shirt. I felt vaguely embarrassed for him and retreated to the lobby. I sat down in one of the easy chairs with the newspaper and soon dozed off….

I woke when he came out, pushing his walker in front of him, the therapist trailing behind, praising him as you would a small child…. Back in the room, I told Grandpa of my ride, and this got us onto the local roads, and he took up the fruitful topic of alternate routes, though before long other associations intervened….

“Gloria lived over on Five Mile…. Or was it Victory? Somewhere around there.” Gloria was his sister-in-law, my grandmother’s brother’s wife; she died sometime in the 1980s, I think. “They had this…what do you call it…bowling place over there near her. Sold gasoline products too…. I don’t know if it’s still there….” He sat with his eyes closed for a minute or so, then snorted, sort of a laugh, but a sound that portends not humor but calamity. “She had this brother, Gloria did,” he said, shaking his head…. He made an “mm” sound in the back of his throat, a further indicator of disapproval and pain. ”He was something.” Something not good.

When Gloria and her brother’s stepfather died, he left half his money to each of them. “But that wasn’t good enough for the brother…. He wanted it all.” Gloria was widowed and sick, and the brother convinced her to come live with him. “He lived somewhere back east,” Grandpa said, “maybe Florida, but I don’t remember for sure….” He paused, thinking, gathering the details. “Gloria had...what do you call it…the palsy.” He held out his hand and shook it. “Well, that brother he shut her in her room and wouldn’t let her out…. And he gave her only half her medication, and before long she died….” We sat in silence for a time, thinking about Gloria’s fate, or at least I thought about it. “He did have her body shipped back out here. She’s buried over in Caldwell with her mother and father…. I don’t know whatever happened to the brother, but he did get all the money, like he wanted.”

Our visit today felt a little awkward. Long, not so easy pauses stretched out between our talk, and the television was off…. Usually I let him do most of the talking. It’s easier that way, since he can’t hear well, and I’d mostly rather listen anyway…. But today he was less forthcoming than usual, and I struck in with bits of info about Minnesota family life. When I told about Alix’s dog, Lula, that got him on his own dog experience.

He wasn’t much for dogs, hadn’t had one in almost forty years, but there had been three, earlier on. Scatter was the first, a hunting dog he’d owned in the forties. Grandpa told a pheasant hunting anecdote, about how the dog would flush birds, but at the first report of the gun Scatter would high tail it for the car, and perch up on the hood, not to be moved. The other two dogs were spaniels, Jill and Toby.  Grandpa told about Jill’s death. “She must’ve been almost twenty…. Towards the end there she’d growl at you if you got close, and she’d always been good with the kids, but then you couldn’t trust her…. Finally had to take her into the vet to have her shot…. I mean, to get, you know… one of those shots.”

When a young woman came to take his blood pressure, Grandpa ordered two dinners. He didn’t want the chicken enchilada so asked for a hamburger (always an option), and that's what arrived in the room for me too. It was pretty bad, dry and flavorless, but I ate two-thirds for show. Grandpa ate slowly, and we didn’t talk, and I ate my side salad one small bit of lettuce at a time, in an effort to match his pace…. But finally I had no more patience. I told him I had to leave, and he nodded yes, and in a moment I was outside and on the bike, riding home under the evening sun.