A Song for my Grandfather
I will continue telling this story as many times as it takes
Until I can get it out of my head
This is the story of my grandfather’s death
And I will begin at the end
They heard the heavy breathing in the other room stop
A chorus of machines providing a
Funeral dirge
To see the body of a man
Resting peacefully for the first time in months
Not believing their own eyes
They grabbed a nurse from the hall
Poor son of a bitch
Still had the smell of med school on him
They acted surprised at
The answer they already knew
To the question they didn’t want to ask
You don’t know what someone will say
When you tell them their loved one has died
But you will find
Silence
Can be deafening
This is something you can not be taught
But you must learn
I pray none of you ever do
You will learn that
There are two ways you can cry in public
You can find a quiet corner
No one can see
Sing your sorrow into a world without judgement
Or you can give up
Collapse where you stand
Rip your sorrow from your body
Through your eyes
Weep
Neither is more appropriate than the other
Neither is any easier
The diagnosis was brain cancer
Fuck that, right?
What is brain cancer to a god?
You can’t hurt a man who’s been through war
For the first operation they scanned his brain
A robot divided his personal supercomputer into a grid
A cross hatched abscess in a haystack
Divided horizontally and vertically
For another robot’s map
One with a metallic blade for an arm
That would find and remove his imminent death
The first operation, was unsuccessful
The second operation, unsuccessful
The third, unsuccessful
The fourth; Now this would be a man’s job
No machine could understand the human brain
This time we would go in and remove it by hand
This time we would be successful
This time we would have something to show
He came out of that fourth operation with nothing
Nothing but a question mark shaped scar
Framing the side of his face
Constantly asking the question
Why? Why? Why?
And I didn’t have an answer for him
I didn’t even understand the question
Not until they found a tumor in my father’s liver
Now I understand why he asked it
But I still don't have an answer