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My grandfather died yesterday evening. He'd been dying for a long time. I know that all deaths are different, and all are difficult - having a loved one taken away suddenly, surprisingly is rough, as is seeing someone succumb slowly to disease and old age. The latter was my grandfather's path. He'd always been a strong, self-sufficient man, so it was hard when he became unable, both physically and mentally, to do simple repairs on the house he himself had built. My grandmother had always regretted that her mother died alone in a nursing home on Christmas Eve, so she took extreme measures to make sure that my grandfather could remain at home, sacrificing her freedom and health so that she could care for him. Though he'd been going downhill for some time, his decline was very rapid this past week. He lost pretty much all mobility, the ability to recognize us, finally even the ability to swallow as his body slowly shut itself down.

We didn't know when he would die precisely, but we knew it would be soon, so my parents, aunt, and I joined my grandmother in a death watch on Saturday, taking turns holding his hand, talking to him, telling stories, reminding him how much we loved him. We'd all pause every time he would stop breathing, but the rattling would resume again - until just before seven in the evening, it didn't. None of us knew how to take a pulse, so we were just gathered around the hospital bed parked in the middle of the living room, trying to determine if he really was gone. When it became undeniable, my grandmother broke down completely and sobbed, clutching his corpse for over two hours until the men from the funeral home came. She was seventeen when she married him - it would have been 63 years in July that they'd been together. My grandfather is the closest person to me that I've ever lost (he and my grandmother were basically second parents to me, as my sister and I spent a lot of time with them growing up due to my mother's illness), but even at that I cannot comprehend the depth of her grief.

On my part, I think since the process of his dying has been so drawn out that I've been grieving in small increments over the course of the last few months, which I'm sure will continue in bouts as time goes on. Grief is also tinged with relief - he had been burdened with an obscene amount of pain and robbed of mind and mobility. He died in the home he built with his own two hands, surrounded by a family that loved him. I will not say that he had a good death, or that those circumstances make a good death, but that's how it happened and I still do not know how to react to it, nor do I know the right way to comfort my grandmother or others in my family. Even though death has been happening as long as there has been life and we know that it is the inevitable end, we still don't know how to take it despite a myriad religions and philosophies offering suggestions. The dead can offer no comfort themselves except through memories, so the living must take comfort in those still living.