Carpe Diem

It’s when you go away when you realize who your friends are

Fuck the rain

It’s raining outside. Not the nice warm rain that make your flowers grow and not the rain that makes it seem if nature itself is angry. But the cold sharp rain that makes your day worse every time you look out the window. I’m sitting in McDonald’s drinking a shitty cup of coffee. There is a fat man complaining about his order. Marco working the cash shrinks away, a meek expression splattered across his face. The bemused Asians check their designer watches, hoping their clothes weren’t ruined by the rain. The little girl beside me asks her mom for a coke. A lady in her pajamas walks in and complains about not having dressing on her salad. Bon iver starts playing on my iPod as my mother is across the street watching my grandfather die.  He fell yesterday, doctors said it could have been a heart attack. I doubt it, my grandfather is one of the most physically fit old people I’ve ever known. He has been doing manual labour every day since he was 14. Whenever he came out to the cabin he would work, a 80 year old man building a shed, or pulling weeds every weekend. I remember when he told me he was giving me the cabin, his baby that he built was going to be mine. I remember when he said we were going to go to Disney world together. I remember when he showed me his pantry filled with homemade sausages and whine. I remember him going moss hunting with me and my dad. And I remember when he forgot it all. My Nono died to me 2 years ago when he “recovered” from the cancer which should gave killed him. The medication he received intensified his dementia, and today he doesn’t even know who I am. I refuse to see him now, I don’t want to see my grandpa who was my idol for years lay on a bed unable to go to the bathroom by himself. If it was up to me he wouldn’t be in a nursing home trapped in a state of suspended animation, he would be in heaven with God. I refuse to let my memories of the man I am named after be tainted by what he is now. When I think of my grandfather I think of the man who took me to the park on his shoulders and poured wine into my 7up to “give it colour”. I remember when he was in the hospital recovering from his cancer (before his mind went) when he said he would come watch me swim. He did.  When his body finally gives up on him I will be happy, and at his funeral I will smile. Because I will know that he is finally with God, as his soul has wanted for the past three years.  Funny thing about rain. No matter what the sun always comes out after it is over.