At the End

“Does he know?” My hand shakes as I set my coffee mug on the side table.

“Of course he knows.”

“For how long?”

“I think he’s seen it coming for months now, deep inside. Or do you mean, when did the doctor tell him? Two days ago.” My grandmother sits across from me on her faded green couch, the same couch she’s had since I was ten years old. Her right hand traces the rim of her own mug, and she stares into it as if it were a crystal ball promising a miracle.

“And how’s he been?”

“As can be expected.”

I don’t know what is to be expected when the news of death comes knocking. Is there ever a proper response? “Well…is he up for company?”

“He’s always up for your company, Charles.” Grandma stands. “Come.”

I follow her down the narrow hallway leading to the master bedroom. When I was a child, I visited my grandparents’ home every weekend. They’d always lived a convenient bike ride away. The hallway had felt like a long tunnel then, spacious and made for cartwheels. But as a grown man, I feel claustrophobic as the walls cave in on me.

“John,” Grandma says. “Charlie’s here. He’s come to see you.”

I step in beside my grandmother and halt abruptly. Grandpa John was the man who built my wooden toy chests with his bare hands and threw me onto his shoulders for long hikes while my parents were busy working. In my mind, he has always been the ablest of men. Strong and vivacious.

The man before me now is frail. Today he sits by a window, staring out at the nearby hills draped in snow. Sun rays glare harshly through the blinds and make his jaundiced skin appear translucent. His head is bald after a bout of failed chemotherapy, and he is so thin that his eyes seem to unnaturally protrude from his head. He drowns in clothes that once fit him snugly.

“Grandpa,” I say softly, careful not to betray the bitter rage I hold toward his illness.

“Hey, Charlie.” He looks eagerly at me out of those unrecognizable eyes. “Marge, get him a chair, won’t you?”

My grandmother complies and looks back and forth between us. “I’ve got supper to put on. I’ll leave you both to chat.”

I resist the urge to grab her sweater and force her to sit with me, to stabilize me in my despair and shock. For a beat of silence I can only stare dumbfounded at the changed man before me.

“Marge keeps cooking and cooking,” Grandpa says. “It’s like she forgot I have damn stomach cancer. I can’t eat a thing she’s making.”

I laugh out loud. “Thank God you still have a sense of humor.”

“I’m still me. Just bald.”

“And you always said Williamson men never lose their hair.”

“Someone give me a trophy. I’m the first Williamson to do it.”

“You put the most effort into it, too. Had to go and get cancer to win the contest.”

We chuckle together and I rest into my chair, momentarily comforted by his humor. Looking out his window, I say, “I miss the snow sometimes.”

“Life must be tough living in Southern California.”

“I barely need a jacket, and it’s January! I can’t complain about twelve months of beach weather, but there’s something special about the snow.”

“Remember when we camped on the beach when you were eleven?”

“How could I forget?”

“You ate so many s'mores, I thought you’d bust open and become a marshmallow yourself.”

“I might have eaten the marshmallows. But you ate the chocolate.”

“Your mother’s face when she saw white sticky goo all over your face!”

“And you! The traitor. Told her the truth and admitted I’d had nine marshmallows. You know she took sweets away from me for the rest of that trip.”

“Nine marshmallows! God, that sounds delicious.”

I sober in an instant. Our banter pauses. I feel wrong to joke about food when I know the heaviness looming over us.

“Charlie, your grandma’s told you, hasn’t she?”

“Told me what?”

“Come off it. You know I’ve been given just four weeks to live.”

I can’t say anything. Unshed tears are stuck in my throat. A sense of helplessness is at bay, threatening to overwhelm me. I am again the six-year-old boy at my grandpa’s side, telling him how a first grader punched me in the nose and all the kids laughed at me. I am sixteen and frantically calling him on the phone after I crashed my mother’s car into a light pole.

“Charlie.”

“What.”

“I’m an old man. I’ve lived a lot of life.”

“You’re 70.”

“Exactly.” My grandpa inclines toward me and rests his bony fingers on my knee. I notice how aged and wrinkled they are, speckled with brown dots. “I want you to take me outside, Charlie.”

“What? No. It’s freezing. You’ll catch a cold.”

“And then what? I’ll die?”

“That’s not funny.” I place my hand on his and sense the coldness in his fingers already. “You need a blanket. I can get a fire going for you.”

“No.” He reaches for his cane. “Let’s go sledding, Charlie. Like we used to.”

“Grandpa, no. It’s 24 degrees outside, and you’d have to climb a hill in the snow.”

“You went to college to become a lawyer. Not to be my nurse, dammit.”

I roll my eyes but he continues to look at me. His eyes may be jaundiced and changed in shape, but the challenge they hold is familiar.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of landing in a snow pit again.” Grandpa moves slowly to grab his coat off its wall hook. “I’ve not forgotten how your friends and I had to dig you out of that mess of an avalanche.”

Stupidly, I agree to help him fasten his coat and lace up his boots. I notice how weak he is and avert my eyes from his trembling hands. I’ve grown taller than him, and as he stoops over his cane, I resemble a giant.

“The sleds are in the garage. Still in the same bin.”

We pass the kitchen on our way to the garage, and I collect my jacket and gloves. My grandmother makes eye contact with me. Her lips tense into a straight line when she sees we are dressed to go outside, but when I shrug and say, “Grandpa wants to sled,” she merely nods.

The bin creaks as it opens and reveals old wooden sleds. I’m the only grandchild, and the bin has gone unexplored for years. I can’t remember sledding since I was a teenager.

“Get the long red one, Charlie. With the knotted rope. It rides the fastest.”

I obey. “So, old man, are you going to drag that cane all the way up the hill with you?”

“You bet.”

But as we begin the trek from the garage up the steep hill, I notice Grandpa struggles with his balance. I adjust the sled’s rope over my right shoulder and slide my left arm around his waist to bear his weight. The snow dissolves beneath our boots. Because it’s soft snow, it’s deep, and our feet sink into it with each step. I silently curse the snow for being difficult.

“Pause a minute,” he pants about halfway up the hill. He bends to place his hands on his knees. I’m convinced this is a terrible idea. I’ve heard that he vomits often lately and looks as though he might do it now. I’m about to insist we hurry back down when he clears his throat and mutters, “It’s too steep. You’ll have to carry me up this hill.”

There is a photo in my mother’s album from when I was three years old. I’m sitting on my grandfather’s lap atop a sled. Grandpa is peeking out from behind my fuzzy blue beanie, beaming. Beneath the photo, my mother’s handwriting indicates it was my first sled ride.

I’m thinking of this photo as I lay down his cane, sling the sled across my back, and pull my grandfather delicately into my arms. I take a deep breath, as much to calm my nerves as to gather strength to trudge onward, and together we climb the hill.

“Do you want to go down alone?” I ask.

“Nah, let’s go together. Can you imagine Marge if I died on this hill today instead of in four weeks? You know she’s one for sticking to the plan.”

I don’t laugh. Gently, I situate my grandfather toward the front of the sled. I sit behind him and reach around for the rope. His head rises only to my chin. Awareness sinks in that I am now the stronger man in this sled ride and responsible for keeping him safe. Though he has not yet left me, the ache of missing him strikes me fiercely.

“You want me to count to three?”

Grandpa shakes his head, chuckling. “Shove us off and let us fly, Charlie!”

I listen. In the next moment, we are soaring down the hill fast as a race car. Green trees blur past us as bits of snow fling onto our coats. We are flying like birds, free of all burdens, taking pleasure in the brisk wind as it wraps around our reddened cheeks. The middle of the hill sends us tilting over a bump, and we bounce, whooping and hollering. I am again a child, and he is again strong.

There is a moment on that hill, a moment when I feel so alive that my blood buzzes with energy, when unfiltered joy puts breath in my lungs and a smile on my face. I etch that moment into my bones, treasuring the knowledge that Grandpa has imparted to me. For I understand then that four weeks left to live is four weeks left to live.

“Charlie,” Grandpa says at the end, laughing, his head thrown back against my jacket. “Let’s do it again.”

So we do.