Snow Melt

The Dark Green Expanse

Across "Invalid Entry"  I see my grandfather laying in a hospital bed awake, but not conscious of his surrounding or of me feeding him heated baby food. His eyes were open and he stared into the space above his bed, I don't know what he saw. Perhaps he looked at the angel of death waiting to embrace him.

What I do know is that he ate the food and didn't choke. After he finished and the tray was put aside, I took his hand. I took his hand and stoked it, caressed it as I would the hand of a child. I took his hand and he stopped breathing. His death wasn't painful or frightening, it was easy as if he walked through a door into another room.

I called the nurse, the Sisters of Mercy came in, sent me out of the room, and they baptized him. He was a Southern Baptist and they sprinkled him with holy water. I'm sure that's what they did, because it came to light with another patient on his death bed that that was what they did when a patient died. I don't find it offensive and I don't think Grandpa would.

Grandpa had Alzheimer's Disease or what appeared to be Alzheimer's. My grandfather worked at a zinc smelter for over 30 years before there were laws to protect the workers from the zinc pollution. So it's possible he suffered from the effects of the zinc pollution. However, it wasn't that which killed him. He died of lung cancer.

My grandfather smoked since he was 13 years old. My grandfather rolled his own cigarettes. I can remember sitting on his lap and watching him roll a cigarette. After he rolled the cigarette, he went outside or to his room to smoke. He never smoked in the same room with his grandchildren or wife. To this day I remember the aroma of Prince Albert Smoking Tobacco, the brand Grandpa used.

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