Roger S. Dunn

Sometime around thirty minutes passed noon on Tuesday, Roger Sherwood Dunn took his last breath.

Roger lived his life for his family. He loved his family, and his family loved him dearly. Celebrations often included food, which was obvious by his portly stature. His deep baritone, nasally voice usually commanded the attention of all around him and his demeanor captured the fascination of grand children.

Roger was my grandfather. He had been in and out of surgeries and therapy for the past ten years. He first suffered a fall while on the job at work in Alaska in 2000, to which I wrote,

“My Grampa is not getting any better. I hope he lives through this. He’s not that old at all. He was supposed to see his great grand children and bounce them on his knee. He’s supposed to be there to play Jeopardy with them as he did with me when I was younger. This isn’t good news at all.”

He underwent brain surgery and treatment for pneumonia and eventually he pulled through. His career eventually ended and he lived simply. He would escort my grandmother to the casino and would love to watch documentaries. As time went on, he had bouts with his health and would occasionally lose his memory.

Recently, he was in the hospital again, and Kelly and I went to visit him each day to see how he was. There wasn’t much dignity in the hospital, sharing a room with another decrepit soul watching day time television. The doctors kept him there to observe him however, even though he seemed fine to me. I grabbed his hand and told him I loved him and we’d see him real soon.

It would be dramatic to say that was the last time we saw him alive, but it wasn’t. We saw him on a recent family outing to a Chinese restaurant. Our family celebrates with food, and my aunt leaving for Thailand was no exception. After filling our bellies and saying our goodbyes, we wished everyone well and said we’d see them soon at Thanksgiving.

My grandfather did not quite make it to Thanksgiving Day, just a few days shy and this will be my first Thanksgiving without my grandfather.

I’m not bitter, nor angry. I’m not even all that sad, nor disappointed. I’ve been through most of the stages of grief I think.

Shock and denial happened in the first few seconds of the call from my mother, who’s voice cracked and waned as she said, “Grampa passed away.”

As I rushed Kelly out of bed and put on some outer layers, I was shaking, and thought to myself, “stop shaking, you’re better than that.” We all knew this this day was coming, but it came a lot sooner than we expected. After all he was discharged from the hospital with a clean bill of health.

Anger probably never really even set in, but I did think about how he wouldn’t get to see my first home, my wedding, nor my first child. I never bargained for more time for him, though I wished it, it was better that he go now. The past ten years had been pretty good to him, and I’m sure he suffered little this way. Telling myself it does no use to be depressed also helped to stave off depression, so I moved directly on to acceptance because it’s the only thing I could do. It was the logical step.

I do feel remorse, and a bit of sadness thinking about it these past few days, but the waterworks don’t come streaming — I fight those off because my grandfather would not have wanted it that way.

When I saw his body on the floor, I had a macabre sense of finality. Perhaps that’s what fast tracked me to acceptance. I didn’t know what to expect going to my grandparent’s house — my mom just said he passed away and instinctively, I knew to go to grandma and grandpa’s house, because it’s the center of my family universe.

I saw in the living room and thought about all of my friends whom have lost their grandparents and I thought about how they must have felt. At 70, my grandfather wasn’t a spring chicken, but he also shouldn’t have had one foot in the grave. I always thought Kelly’s grandmothers would beat him to the finish line at 87 and 97 years respectively.

If their is a God, he had some sort of plan for my grandfather, and he needed him now, as opposed to two days after Thanksgiving Day.

I don’t believe in God though, so it will have to be logic and reason: His medication and his body couldn’t keep up anymore. We think his heart stopped in a non-violent heart attack, possibly due to medication. It starved his brain of oxygen so, hopefully it was a peaceful death, and we would like to think of it as such.

My mom blames herself. My grandmother blames herself. They were out together, as my grandfather went into his room for a nap. They came back home and my grandmother went about her business making lunch for my grandfather. When she was done, she went to wake him up by shaking his arm.

His arm was cold, but as she tells it, his legs were still warm. He was not breathing. They called the paramedics and they were the ones to lift him out of bed and onto the floor. I don’t know if this is policy, but it does make sense to try to revive someone on a flat, even surface. They tried to resuscitate him, but it was already too late.

When I arrived through the front door, I simply walked in and saw him with blankets covering him on the floor, in the hallway. I walked around and brushed my hand back to keep Kelly from seeing, or stepping in that direction. His food was now cold on the kitchen table.

I looked in my grandmother’s eyes and she stared at me and said, “It’s too soon.”

More family arrived, and the ones that could be there, were. When my aunt came in, she went around to the body and started weeping. That’s when I lost it, but was able to regain composure as Kelly gripped onto me tightly and rubbed my back.

Then came family high jinx and shenanigans.

We waited. The paramedics just left the body there. We didn’t know what would happen next. It’s not like the movies at all. They don’t take the body with them, someone else comes to take it.

And we continued to wait and as 4 PM rolls around, I blurt out, “Is it free if they don’t get here by four?”

We all start to wonder how much everything is going to cost and start calling different mortuaries to see which one could get there first. Around 4:40 PM, the first man arrives. He’s a contract transporter of dead bodies for the mortuary. He begins his paperwork and says someone else would be coming to help him.

Part of the contract is to check the body for belongings and jewelry. To do that, he had to lift up the blankets and check his body. This was the first time I actually say my grandfather’s dead body. He didn’t look like he was sleeping. He simply looked dead. No breathing, no kicking, no snoring (as my grandfather was notorious for), and certainly no signs of life. He was just laying there with a mask on for oxygen, some plastic and tape strapped to his chest. An unidentified material near his heart probably used to try to revive him.

This viewing helped to give permanence to the fact that he is dead.

As the other transporter came, they brought white linens to wrap the body and moved him onto a gurney where they propped him up and revealed his face. We all looked one last time as much uncle shook his head in acknowledgment, as if to say, “Take him away.”

We sat and stood around in disbelief for a few moments when we decided that it was time to leave. We were emotionally drained when my grandmother says, something, totally in audible to me, but to which my uncle says, “okay” with laughter.

We go to get Thai food at a new Thai place in Mira Mesa. We celebrate everything with food in our family. Even death.

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