My grandfather, Grandpa as I called him, was diagnosed with leukemia in his early 70s. He was the kind of person you wanted to talk with about life, and the kind of person who would let you. He was generous to all people, not any specific person. He cared deeply for his family and friends. My grandfather had a very dry sense of humor but was intelligent, so when he used large words it was difficult to tell if he was serious or not.

My parents dropped me and my brother off at his house when we were about 12 and 9, respectively. At the time, his two youngest daughters Elise and Eva, were home and told us they got a new trampoline. When I asked my grandfather if we could go outside and play on it, afraid he might say no, he grumbled, “I don’t care what you kids do, just don’t kill yourselves. If you get hurt, I don’t wanna know about it.”

My brother and I were shocked at his response and probably thought it was insensitive; our own parents were much more strict and worrisome. My brother hurt his knee that day, but since we took his directions literally, we never told him.

Several years later he asked me about my studies, and I told him I was taking biology. Before I could explain what we were learning, he jumped in and started going on about how amazing human life is and used long words that I had never heard before. I nodded my head as if I knew precisely what he was saying, desperately hoping he wouldn’t suddenly ask me a question.

He swore a lot, even around his grandkids, using words like “shit” and “Goddamn” most often. He enjoyed sweets, going as far as frosting a Suzy-Q, and questioned why we all laughed when my mom caught him.

My grandfather chose not to let his diagnosis chip away at his life. He carried on. It was part of him, sure, and he knew that.

But something about him just would not let cancer win.

He controlled it; not the other way around.

He was quiet, but still let his voice echo, particularly through his art. He liked to paint, as he was a well-established architect, and spent immense amounts of time creating special cards for each of our birthdays.

I remember when my dad turned 40, he drew a golfer’s hole and, in his calligraphic handwriting, wrote: “You’re over the hill!” He thought it was fantastic and was really proud, so we laughed along with him.

My grandfather’s passing came as a shock to my family even though we knew he was sick. It was just starting to feel less like winter, the end of the school year was in sight, and after losing my great-grandmother only a month before, things seemed to be returning back to normal.

I think the loss of my great-grandmother, which was even more sudden than my grandfather’s, made me think that I could somehow plan his death. It made me feel like I had to somehow make him wait to die so that it was a good time for me; I didn’t want his death to happen soon (or ever, for that matter) and I certainly did not expect to be sitting next to him in a smelly hospital room while his body slowly gave out.

I hate to admit it, but it was almost like my grandfather’s death was an inconvenience to me, and I wish that I could erase the part of my life where I felt like that.

One thing I always wondered but was too afraid to ask my grandfather was if he knew that he was dying, or, I guess if he reached a point during his suffering in which he understood that his life was coming to end.

I wondered this not only because he was the first person in my life I got to really “watch” die, but also because six months before his passing he wrote me a letter accompanied by a detailed painting of Monhegan Island, Maine all based off his memory.

Was this a way for him to cope with his realization that he was dying?

I’m not sure any of my family has the answer to that question, but regardless of why he wrote the letter, I am grateful to have it.

In my letter, my grandfather describes how in some ways I am very much like my dad’s oldest sister, Megan, in that we both are planners. In this section of the letter, he says, “I think she finally figured out that the planners seldom got it right, at least for her.”

This sentence is one of the ones that stuck out to me most, as he nailed it: I tend to plan out each day of the week, write out what I plan, and double check it to make sure I have time for it all.

But he’s right: life doesn’t always go the way you plan, and us “planners” simply have to deal with that, the way that I had to deal with his unexpected death and accept that the planner in me did not “get it right”.

As he would have said casually, shit happens. And that’s exactly what his death made me say over and over. It was inconvenient and untimely, it was hard, ugly, loud, emotional, and tragic. But it was his time and he had to leave. I’m dedicating this memoir and reflection of one of the most difficult days of my life to my late grandfather, Christopher D. Williams.

“Good-morning everyone, today we’re going to go over last night’s homework and talk about the upcoming project.” The class ignored Mr. Awdziewicz’s, my high school business teacher, attempt to start his lecture. “Hey. Guys. Yeah, settle down.”

First period of an ordinarily gloomy and brisk March day, for me, ended before it began. I drove my brother and myself to school for the painfully early 7:25 am start. As I sat down in my seat, about to tune in to what my bald-headed, heavy-set business teacher was saying, I received a text from my mom.

It read: “Hi, did u make it to school? Dad and I r at the hospital with Tracy, the girls, Uncle Matt, and Leigh. Grandpa had a stroke last night. We’re waiting for them to take him up to a private room.” I froze. A stroke? Wasn’t cancer enough? Just last week he called me to congratulate me on my induction into the National Honor Society. How did this happen? I wasn’t prepared for this. I hadn’t planned for this! No no no, I thought, not today. Please, not today.

I texted her back, asking if I should leave school. I had all kinds of questions, one of them, of course, being “Is he okay?”. The answer to that was no, he was not okay. He wasn’t even conscious, not breathing on his own, completely unaware of everything around him.

The answer was that he was alone and cold to the touch in an ugly, bare hospital room, barely grasping his last day. I began to quiver, my hands unsteady, clammy and struggling to grip my pencil. I left my phone on my desk, hoping my teacher wouldn’t notice that it was there as I impatiently and desperately awaited my mother’s response.

After ten minutes or so, I got a text from my mother. She was coming to get me and my brother Zach. It was bad, she said; not looking good.

He hadn’t woken up since 2 am earlier that morning. He got up from bed to get a glass of water and Tracy followed him in to ask him if he was okay. He said no, clutched the back of the toilet with one hand and the edge of the countertop with the other before he collapsed.

That was it. Unresponsive.

He never saw daylight again. Never spoke another word. He was transported by ambulance but he was gone before they got there. His youngest daughters would wake up to their worst living nightmare. And he would leave his wife. His older four kids. His six grandchildren. He just left.

I told my teacher I’d be leaving soon, not that he cared. He told me if I had to go I could, so I did. My mom wasn’t there yet, but I left. I walked out into the hallway, didn’t say bye to my friends in class, and cried. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I walked aimlessly through the halls until my mom arrived, tears soaking into the hood of my over-sized sweatshirt.

She didn’t even say hello. She just got out of the car, hugged me and Zach, and got back in. The ride across town to the hospital was silent. No speaking, no music, no sound. Nothing but the quiet hum of the Jeep’s engine, and, occasionally, gentle sighs from my mom. Looking back now, the ride did not seem as silent as it was.

There were series of questions forming in my mind, and they were noisy, but the tone set by my mother’s silence indicated I should follow suit. My questions would have to wait, even though they were begging to be let out.

We entered the emergency room and found the rest of my family. Most of them were crying. I saw my dad sitting in a chair next to my grandfather’s hospital bed in a navy blue UCONN sweatshirt. Seeing him made me cry, and he got up to hug me. He let me sit next to my grandfather, and at first, I didn’t know what to do.

I just stared and cried and, in my head, blamed him and ridiculed him for having to go and do this. Certainly, I wasn’t thinking rationally, but I remember those thoughts. My dad’s two sisters lived in upstate New York and would have to make a trip down.

We have to wait? There’s no way we’re going to be sitting here all day. No way.

Well, we did.

He was moved up to a private room after about an hour, and there was a large family waiting room that we took over. We took turns going in and sitting with him.

“Do you want me to come with you?” I shook my head.

“Are you sure?”

My dad was concerned that going alone to sit with my grandfather was a bad decision. I assured him I’d be fine. “I’ll come in a few minutes.”

The doors outside of his room were glass and automatic. Piakkkk. They opened. I hesitated before going in. A yellow curtain separated me from him, and I noticed a chair like the one my dad was sitting in downstairs across from the foot of his bed. I’ll just sit there. Then I won’t have to be so close.

Yeah, it’ll be fine. I walked around the curtain but never made it to the chair. Instead, I walked to the far side of his bed, looked at him and began to cry. I remember the feeling of my tears streaming down my face, leaving lines of evidence behind. They wouldn’t stop. I held onto his swollen hand, and gently squeezed it.

Part of me was hoping for a pivotal moment like in the movies when the simplest touch somehow takes the death out of a person and brings them back to life. That didn’t happen. Instead, his hand lay lifeless in mine, and his fingers’ natural curl folded gently over the back of my hand.

I leaned over to his ear, whispered ‘I love you, Grandpa’ and kissed his cheek. In that moment, I just wanted to find life’s pause button and I couldn’t. Life went on around me, but what I was looking at, hearing from the life support machine, and holding in my hand was not life. It was death.