Mortality

I guess I'm one of those people who don't fear death. It has nothing to do with courage, and all to do with ignorance, arrogance, and denial. I'm 16 years young, 17 in a week. What do I have to worry about death for? Death seems so far away, so obscure, so intangible. It's almost as incomprehensible as Heaven and Hell. We know it exists, but we fail to see it's connection to our life at this one moment in time. Death has always been something for the old and senile, the sickly, the gangbangers out in Oakland. Death would never strike in my neighborhood, let alone in my family. I am impervious to death. My youthful skin repels Death like Gandalf fights Balrogs. "You shall not pass, bitch!!"

Death is something you never want to come knocking. Something you never want T-Boning you at a four-way stop, running you down as you cross the street without looking. Death is something that only happens to idiots and martyrs, and honestly, who's to say there's a difference. But Death is something you have to come to terms with, something you have to embrace as a fact of life. It's the last period at the end of the last paragraph on the last page of the book of life. (In my case, my thirteen page auto-biography.) It's final. It's fatal. It's the threshold to a new life.

My Grandma is lying in the emergency room today. Well, tonight, as it is. My grandfather found her this morning sleeping on the couch. After waking her up, he noticed that her movements were a little uncoordinated. After helping her onto the couch, she slid off. He fed her some chicken soup, and upon asking her how it tasted, she had already forgotten that she had drank it. She tried to place something in the refrigerator, but the refrigerator shelf just wouldn't stay still. My grandfather decided that my grandmother should take a nap.

My grandfather then called my Dad. Nothing serious, he said. When you asked her where her dentures were, she just moved her mouth noiselessly, he joked.

She'll be fine. She fought the Communists.

My Dad immediately tells my grandfather to go get my grandmother. He can't, grandfather replies, she went out for a meeting. This little old woman, who had woken up from her two hour nap with no memory of what had transpired that morning, decided to get up, go downstairs, and attend a meeting. God bless her.

My Dad rushes back to San Jose from his office in Fremont to pick my grandparents up from the senior home. They drive to the hospital, only to discover that my grandfather, in his rush, had forgotten all of my grandmother's documentation at home. Dad is pissed. Time is lost. Maybe thirty minutes later, they find themselves back in the emergency room.

Doctors say that she may have suffered from a mild stroke. Coincidentally, I had learned about strokes today in Physio. Drooping side of the body, difficulty walking/talking, confusion, headache, fainting. My grandmother is only three for six. 80% of strokes are caused by blood clots in the brain. I have come to understand that these are detected through CT scans. My grandmother's is scheduled for tomorrow. My medical knowledge is limited, but I know that doctors can administer a clot buster within three hours of the stroke. However, she exhibits almost no symptoms now, if not for the slight memory lapse. My grandmother is a hemophiliac, her blood shouldn't clot easily. I want a concrete reason for why this happened. I don't want theories.

My grandmother is a hale and hearty old woman. She carried the entire ping pong table up three flights of stairs during a flood back in Taiwan. She grabbed a man's balls to stop him from thrashing my grandfather. She dances the ribbon dance a capella. Nothing can keep her down. I have faith.

I guess it's just weird to see my grandma in the hospital. Not that I got to see her. I spent two hours waiting in front of the Silicon Valley Hospital because only my grandfather and my Dad had visitor passes. I want to know how she is. I want to see for myself her condition. I want to feel the strength in her hands and see the spirit in her eyes. Usually it's my grandfather lying in the hospital, telling us that he's not afraid to die. My grandmother never leaving his side, sleeping on the hospital cot. Now the roles are reversed, but the cast is ill-fitted. There are no hospital beds available for Grandma, so she's still lying in the emergency room. There's no place for grandpa to sleep, so he's back home. Alone, for the first time in years. Is this where time takes us?

I don't fear death. I fear loneliness. I fear isolation.

I'm not a rock. I'm not an island. I am a human being with a soul that craves the emotional balm of human relationships. I see my grandpa lying in bed, alone, on the sixth floor of the senior home. No karoake tonight. One bed occupied, one lies empty. The lights are on, he can't sleep.

The sounds of downtown San Jose keep him up, the silence in his bedroom is deafening.