“Well, I swum with the sharks. I guess I can handle this.”
Story I:
Sharks
I’ll never forget that day. That moment. How does one even attempt to describe such a moment? One that the image of which is forever branded onto my mind.
The phone rang and I answered. It was my father calling. His tone was serious and he got straight to the point. He seemed to be a bit in shock. He told me that “our father,” his father, my grandfather, had received a call from the doctor regarding some tests that had been done. The results were in and the doctor was asking my grandparents to bring the family with them for support when they came to hear those results. I knew what this meant and I was not ready. The moment, however, was ready for me.
I remember leaving work that day. A free afternoon away from a job that one does not enjoy is usually so welcome. Not today. Not for this purpose. I skipped the elevator and I walked down eight flights of stairs before I even realized what I had done. At the same time, my descent seemed to take forever. My mind was racing. Stomach churning. What were my grandparents thinking and feeling as they, too, headed towards our mutual destination?
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I made my way down the steep and winding road that traversed the West Hills and lead down into town. Music flowed from a cassette in the tape deck and through the speakers that surround me. I do not remember the song. But I do. Isn’t it strange that, while I can’t tell you now the name of the song, or the band, I nevertheless remember how incredibly appropriate a soundtrack it was as it played for my journey that day. Cars are flying by headed in the opposite direction. They seem to stand still, swallowed in silence. I find comfort in the imagined stillness that surrounds my car. The only reason I know that I am still alive is from the smell of the exhaust, tempered by the smell of trees and leaves and ferns and flowers, all wafting in through my downed windows.
I pulled into the parking lot and parked and locked my car before entering the doctor’s office to find that I had driven to the wrong location. Thankfully I knew my way around local medical facilities for, in those days, I didn’t have a cell phone with which to call anyone for directions. And where, or who, would I even call? Missing this family moment would have been a devastating disaster that I am certain would still haunt me today.
My grandparents, bless her hearts, supported there grandchildren in every way that could possibly be fit into a single day. They kept a schedule on a chalkboard in their kitchen detailing the various events that they planned to attend. I don’t know how they did it all. Things seemed to go great for those two when they were in motion. Through these actions they taught me how to support those around one. How to keep those who are important to us always in mind. How to show interest in others. To love. To support. To make it clear that you care. I returned to my car and drove the mile or so up the road to the main hospital complex where I should have been, where the test results were waiting.
I emerged from the dampened light of the parking structure to take in a quick drink of sunlight, a deep breath of the blue sky, before walking into the doctor’s office. I found many members of my extended family filling the seats. Except for my grandparents, my father and my aunt. They were still in the room with the doctor. The next thing that I remember was my father and aunt entering the waiting room looking ashen. They took a place of leadership before the family to announce the news. I actually think that my father stood upon as chair as he addressed us. After surviving a stern father, the harsh rigors of farm life, the Great Depression, melanoma, quadruple bypass open heart surgery and colon cancer, my grandfather’s diagnosis this time was terminal. The cancer was assaulting and laying waste to his lungs. It had metastasized to his brain. Willis Edwin Benjamin, my grandfather, would not live much longer.
I was in shock. I turned and walked, alone, out of the office. No one followed me. I suppose they were all frozen in their very own shock. I walked down a hall and through a door, then out onto a patio overlooking the parking structure. We were two floors up. It was quite a view over the top of that concrete parking structure and down through the trees to the ever faithful meander of the Willamette River below. I remember wanting to cry and not being able to. I felt stuck between worlds. I had hoped someone would come after me. Give me a hug. No one did. It was more important however, in retrospect, to have a moment with myself. To be alone. I was not really alone though, nor was my skin a stranger to that touch, that embrace, for which I yearned. I stood comforted by the mother wind, Veja Mate, as she gently blew upon my face and into my senses the reassurance that “Mother Earth will take care of all [of your] needs” and that it was time to “harness [your] winds” of emotion (1). At some point I did just that and returned to the waiting room.
My grandparents appeared from the doctor’s exam room like they always were—together. We greeted them and then proceeded to exit the building en masse. The bearer of bad news was now at our backs. There was sunlight followed by a deep breath of blue sky before we re-entered the dampened light of the parking structure. We walked down a slight grade in the structure that lead to our cars. I was the grandson in front of him, and to his right and left, two more of his grandsons, while his children and wife took up the rear. And then, from out of the depths of his stoic silence he proclaimed, “Well, I swum with the sharks. I guess I can handle this.” He did not make eye contact, but he was looking straight ahead and through me. He seemed to be somewhere else at that moment. I had no idea what he meant. I just grinned. Frankly, it was all an out of body experience for me. He turned then, opened the back of the van, and went straight to counting the much needed hot dog buns, the ones for his precious snack shack. The ones he’d taken the time to stop off at an unnamed corporate club store for while on his way to hear news he must have already known would be devastating. “Snack Shack Pete,” they called him. These precious hot dog buns represented the fact that, no matter what, he would make sure that there was no pause in his efforts to raise money within his community. I can see him so clearly in my mind’s eye as I type “Snack Shack Pete.” He is pleased that you are being told this. Tickled. If you knew him then I know you can imagine that face and giggle too.
I can see it all so clearly right now. We are in this concrete parking structure, the one I’d gazed out over when I’d taken my moment alone on the balcony just a short time earlier. I hate parking structures as I usually depart them suffering from a migraine due to exposure to the voluminous amounts of exhaust that get trapped inside. I was trapped now, in there with all of the cars and their demon breath. I want to die whenever I have a migraine. I hate them. But I am just grinning. And I am in a panic. My heart is aching. It does not show. I grin and carry on. There is good in that but there is also destruction that comes with this “going on” mentality. My grandfather always kept on going. My grandfather, knowing he could only be facing devastating news, nevertheless stood up, his two feet firmly planted beneath him, and, pace to pace with his wife of fifty-four years, marched stoically one step at a time into that appointment. There are a lot of lessons in that for us to be guided by. At that moment, in that parking structure, the words resting on my soul and within my brain are much to profound for my tongue to carry to the world. They were words to be written and now they are committed to the page. Here and now. I know that all of my family — grandmother, father, uncles and cousins — are in my periphery. Surrounding and supporting. I see the rear of my grandfather’s van as he opens the hatch to expose his perfectly organized shiny plastic bags of buns. I’m sure there were multiple sorts, but for some reason I just remember the hot dog buns.
What I do remember vividly was that my grandfather seemed to be in shock. I got the feeling that there really wasn’t any reason for him to be messing with the stuff in the back of the van. He was just carrying on, keeping busy. A man long conditioned to deal with the jabs and darts in life by keeping busy, working. He shut the back on the van and all those who’d come with him from my home town slowly and solemnly piled inside. My grandfather walked around to the right side of the van and I followed behind. I remember the back of his head as he started to get into the van. He paused and turned around to face me. I cannot remember if he looked me in the eyes for longer than for a fraction of a moment, but there was a connection.
And then he uttered the words that I can still hear so clearly today, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I responded.
I don’t remember ever having heard those words from him before in my life. I sure as hell don’t remember having ever said those words to him myself. Never. Isn’t that horrible? I mean, I always signed my cards and letters with, “Love,” but I never walked right up to him for no other reason than to just say “Grandpa? I love you.” His words that day weren’t the kind of “I love you” that comes from a grandmother who has spoken the phrase with ease, time and time again. Rather, they were obviously words that were hard for him to say, but the moment was so much more expansive than just the two of us and, within the power and safety of such a moment he could reveal his truth. Nevertheless, it was not easy for him to say those words. Especially at a time during which he could have, quite appropriately, been acting selfishly. The “I love you,” was short and abrupt and it was awesome! The memory of it nourishes me to this day.
I can never really know precisely all of my grandfather’s feelings on that day. If I had it all to do over, I would ask him how he was feeling and what he was thinking. We should not dwell upon such a missed opportunity, however, (as people so often do), as a melancholic mistake. Instead, it should be viewed as a guide post for how to do something in a different way at another time.
Everything in its own time however. Everything in its own time.
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