My Grandfather

My grandfather died today. At least I think it was today, time differences often confuse me. These pictures are from the last time I saw him, over the summer. He was 95 and he was a good man getting sicker and sicker as the years went by. He had a heart attack last week and had to be moved to assisted living for the first time. Obviously, it didn't agree with him.

I shouldn't make light, but humor is a defense mechanism and I need some defenses right now. The funeral is this Sunday and I won't be able to be there. I probably couldn't have even gotten there on time had I the opportunity to come, but I so wanted to. He has (had, rather) been talking about death for a while, feeling lousy and contemplating the end, and I always thought I could be pay my respects, say goodbye, do whatever it is people do at funerals. Whatever it is funerals exist to accomplish. I had hoped that I wouldn't be too darn far away from my family again, like I was when my grandmother died in 2004. But you can't control the world. If I could, flights from here to Boston would take one hour and would cost $20. I would go to the funeral, I would say goodbye to a man I felt I barely knew but always knew I respected greatly.

Does that make any sense?

Charles Saltzman was always an example to me of an impressive and accomplished man. He graduated high school at 14, med school at, I think, 21. He was married something like 67 years - the numbers escape me but the impact remains the same. I only knew him when he was old, and my clearest memories take place in this retirement home to which he and his wife moved when I was a kid.

.I only saw them occasionally since the whole country was between us, but I loved that he did crosswords every day and walked for miles into his nineties. That he played bridge and could still crack jokes and laugh, even with failing hearing, diabetes, who knows what all. When I last saw him this summer he told many jokes about psychiatrists (he was one) and adulterers (he was not one of those). One of his favorite jokes:

Neurotics build castles in the sky.
Psychotics live in them.
Psychiatrists collect the rent.

And another:

What has two legs and sleeps with cats?
Mrs. Katz and sometimes Mrs. Nusbaum!

I have to admit, I still don't understand that second one.

My grandfather visited his wife in the nursing home wing of the retirement home every day at one o'clock. All the nurses and attendants knew him by named and called out to him, the most happening guy in the place. My grandmother is no longer aware of what goes on around her, but he would hold her hand and sing to her, songs from their youth. Frank Sinatra songs. He would stroke her hair and tell her that she had been so beautiful, that she was still so beautiful, and that he loved her.

I wish I'd had the time to say the same to him.