transparent.

i don't know how to say goodbye to my grandfather. i spent some time with him the past few days, sitting with him, watching part of an old movie with him, and i found myself staring, but not at him - through him. there i was, just trying to be with him, but i wasn't. at least, not as much as i'd have liked. we talked a little, but his voice was not the voice i remember. it was the echo of the voice i remember. my body was sitting next to him, kissing his cheek, his handlebar mustache scratching my face, hugging him while breathing deeply, stealing the smell i have grown up with so i don't forget. my thoughts are all over, wondering if this is the last time i will see my grandpa; if this is the last time i will hear him ask me if i was still his girl, if this is the last time, i hear him clearing his throat, his voice escaping gruffly, gravelly; if this is the last time i will smell him - the smell of my grandpa. the smell of love that doesn't pass judgment. his hands, smoother than mine, but so much larger, with a lifetime of manual labor engraved in his palm, old age and pain wrinkling the top, cool, and firm, makes mine disappear; wondering if this is the last time i will watch old movies i would never watch on my own, but find out that i can enjoy them, even if it is only because i am sitting here with him. i wonder how long it's been that i haven't seen him - i wonder how long it's been that i've looked at him and seen only my memories of him.

he's lived a lifetime that i only know scraps of. and i know it's been imperfect, that he's been imperfect, because i've heard traces of that as well, although i never could really internalize all of that because that's never been the grandpa i've known. and he mostly just lays out on his bed or his lazy boy now and doesn't get up much, but i still remember sitting on his lap, i still remember taking him by the hand to show him something i thought was exciting, and he did, too. he did, too. and i'm with him now, staring right through him, thinking that he seems not unhappy. he's 88. and i think he's lived a life that he seems quite proud of. and maybe his only doubt or misgivings is not whether or not he wants to do much more than he has, but what his wife will do when he's gone. the woman he met when they were just a boy and a girl, and this boy and girl who fell in love with each other, fought with each other, had a family together, struggled together, nagged each other, but were just there, together. and now, very soon, they both know, that they won't be together for longer than they've been apart their entire lifetimes, except when he was in the war.

it's a life i can't imagine. and i think to myself, maybe this is it. absence of regret isn't always about thinking that there were other choices that could've been made, because there are always choices to be made. maybe it's just believing in what made you choose something over something else so much that you think to yourself that whatever happened, you wanted something so bad, there was no other choice to be made. my father told me once that if someone didn't have any regret, they didn't live their life as fully as they could've. we disagree on many things, but he told me that, and it made me stop, and i realize now that he made me change my mind. i have a tendency to become immobilized by choices, which has made me the butt of many jokes, but this fear of making the wrong choice comes from a fear of making a choice that leads to regret later when i know more or think i do or something.

but here's what i know now. i'm glad that my precociousness as a child prevented me from having fear of taking my grandpa by the hand, that i never considered my loving him as a choice i had to make, that my love for him propelled me home when it was hard, harder than it should have been, because there are no regrets there. i think he knows by now how i love him, imperfect as i am, imperfect as my love is because i know how much he loves me. and i continue to be surprised by how much that still means to me at 24 and a layover away. i look at him and know that when he looks back, he still sees the unsullied joy of us, even when i'm not sitting right next to him. and he dozes off, but i'm wide awake, and just looking at him. i don't know how to say goodbye to my grandfather. so i don't. and i don't think he knows how to say goodbye to me, either. in any case, he didn't. i think we both appreciated it.