death

I've been preoccupied with death lately.  He lingers on my mind and won't let me alone. He comes back once every few years, mostly in dreams. Before I left Taiwan, my paternal grandma fell ill and had to be rushed to the hospital. I've never been fond of hospitals, even though for the most part, it's a place where people are nursed back to health. The doctors said she somehow broke her leg.  She's been paralyzed on the entire left side of her body for twenty odd years due to a stroke.  The whole business gives me trepidation.

My family visit the hospital at all hours, everyday, just so that my grandma is never alone and for the few hours she is awake, she'll have someone to talk to.  When she is awake, she'll at least maybe recognize a smiling face.  For the most part, the only sound in the room is the soft buzz of the television and my grandma's breath, raspy in sleep. I wonder what she dreams about, if her dreams are still lucid. Both my grandparent's have alzheimer.  They recognize me maybe 5% of the time.  

My earliest memory is being fed by my mother by one of those rubber tipped spoons. I'm not sure if it was an actual memory or just part of a dream, but I had to have only been two years old.  How completely helpless are children. They completely at the peril and care of caretakers, not only for physical needs, but subsequent upbringing.  Sometimes people fail miserably to say the least.  I guess that's the state in which my grandparents have reverted back to, but no longer learning, rather expunging a lifetime of experiences. Needing someone to hold them while they walk, telling people when they need to use the restroom. My grandpa still asks for my grandma daily, even though his mental capabilities are spotty at best and I figure that is what love is.

My father has driven out to the hospital at least twice a day on top of his job and other obligations just to see my grandma who sometimes doesn't even remember who he is anymore. He rushes back and forth from home so that neither my grandpa or grandma is never alone for more than a few hours.  I can tell that the stress is wearing him out, but I figure that is what love is.

My mother lost her own father seven years ago. My own art mentor and the person who inspired me to chase my own crazy dreams. My mother will still tell me stories about him and how he escaped communist Chinese capture in his teens to the island of Taiwan.  How he met my grandmother and their life story. She still visits his grave out in the countryside when she can, and I figure that is what love is.

I've always imagined myself dying young. Always in some hapless and haphazard accident because that's just the way I've lived my life. I'm still learning I suppose and trying to figure things out. Learning about life and all the beauty and tragedy that comes with it.  And I suppose that I'm wrong about a lot of things. That I still have a lot to learn and all the things I've not yet seen and still have to experience, because I'm not ready to expunge.  So for now, I figure death can suck on my balls.