Black Ice

Too Late For Goodbyes

The day starts off with me getting ready for a speech and debate competition around 5:50am. The whole team was heading down to Cincinnati so we had to leave my high school early enough to be prepared for what the day had in store for us. Since it was December 10th, the walk from my house to my high school was cold, windy and snowy. I remember looking at the white, heavy snow feeling confident that it was going to be a good day, but just like black ice, disasters can occur.
    Throughout the day I didn't get a single message, call or notification that anything was wrong, so I continued the competition like any other competition. I did an event called "Informative Speaking" where I gave a speech about the benefits of laughing, and how laughing can even help a person live longer by decreasing stress on the heart. The competition is coming to an end, and it was about time to announce awards. I came in third out of over fifty competitors and received a gold and brown plaque congratulating my success, and just like that I thought my hunch about it being a good day was correct.
The school bus pulled up to my high school and I noticed my dad was in his black truck waiting for me, I thought that was weird. When I got into the truck I asked in a joking manner, "Why did you pick me up? I can walk home."
There was complete silence. When I noticed that we weren't driving home, I turned my head slowly, but surely and said, "Where are we going?"
I noticed that my dad was holding back tears, I have never seen my dad cry before, or even fight to hold back tears, so I knew something was off. We drove in silence the whole way to what I now know is a hospice center. Once we got there, my dad sent my little brother and I into this little lounge where his fiance had dinner waiting for us. My dad was using food to cover up the fact that what he was about to tell us would be devastating.
"Boys, your grandpa is in bad condition, and doctors say he has about a few weeks left," he said with an emotionally cracked voice.
I looked at my brother, feeling numb, so numb that my hands went ice cold and I wasn't emotional. I wasn't even thinking that he was dying. I was in shock.
"What does that mean?" I asked while trying to process everything.
With no words, but a few hand gestures, my dad directed my brother and I to a room where my grandpa was to spend the rest of his life at. My grandpa was connected to several machines, loaded on drugs to ease his pain, and sleeping when we got to his room. He was snoring, I felt my shoulders relax and my breathing returning to a normal pace, because it was the snoring I could hear between the walls at my grandma and grandpa's house, loud but calming. I had never seen my grandpa in this condition, and I felt like my grandpa didn't want me to either, so I turned away because the sight of him like that was killing me softly. Behind me was the nurse keeping my grandpa stable.
"He should have a few weeks left, but he can hear you. Whatever you say he can hear." she said as if she was encouraging me to say my goodbyes.
With that in mind, I walked over slowly because I was still in shock and whispered in his right ear,
"I don't really know if you can hear me, but I want to say that I love you. I know I can be a pain sometimes, but you always loved me and I can't thank you for that, so wake up, let me tell you."
Slowly, I backed away and walked towards my hysterical grandma to give her a hug.
"That was beautiful hon, you know he loved you," my grandma said reaching out for my ice cold hand.
Tears were slowly forming in my eyes because I just realized that I might have only my grandma in the rest of my life, and not my grandpa. The nurse suggested that we all go home and rest while she was taking vitals from my grandpa. Rightfully so my grandma was the first to walk out because she had come to terms that her husband of over 40 years was soon about to be removed from her life. I took one last look at my grandpa that night, and noticed something off with the nurse's facial expressions, as her eyebrows raised and a frown shadowed across her face.
"You might want to get your mother back in here" she urgently tells my dad.
And at that moment, I felt like I was trudging through snow and slipped and fell because everything felt so heavy on me and it was very hard for me to breathe. This was the black ice, the unexpected.
My grandma rushed back in, took one look at the nurse, and just broke down. My grandpa was taking his last breaths, hearing his last words, and then the snoring stopped. Everything stopped. It felt like the world stopped spinning as the screams and cries of my sister echoed in my head. I never heard her cry like that. My sister just arrived expecting her grandpa to be alive, instead, with an unfortunate event, he was not. That night, I found myself crying myself asleep in a green leather recliner feeling the heartbreak of losing a loved one. A feeling I wouldn't wish on anyone.
Now I'm sitting here writing this, reminiscing about that day and the things I would've done differently. I think back to my speech and debate tournament and wonder if I would have given him a few more moments of life if I had whispered a joke in his ear instead. We often take advantage of the things we have, for instance, family. So hold onto them, let them know you love them, because you never know when they'll be taken from you. Remember the next time you're driving on steady ground during a snowstorm, one minute you could be looking straight, and the next minute, you're not.