Grandpa

They say your air is

leaving you, and I wonder how that can be when your

jokes and 

funny faces would always make me laugh so hard that

I would be the one left unable to 

breathe.

They say your oxygen levels are

unstable, and I don´t understand how any part of you could be 

weak when it was

your knee I sat upon and

your shoulders I slept upon and

your arms that carried me all through my younger years to 

now.

Much of my time with you has been

tears.

From that ¨it´s a boy!¨ phone call at six years old when I had been 

praying for a 

baby sister that I threw a 

tantrum over, to

sobbing on the threadbare green sofa in the

basement at nine because the one movie out of your collection of

2000 that I picked to watch had 

babies being killed and that

scared me out of my wits, to

laughing so hard when you 

spit your fake teeeth that joy 

leaked from my corneas, to 

now, 

wishing you could do all those things again, 

wishing you weren´t in need of an 

oxygen tank to breathe, 

wishing you weren´t inhaling for the last times in that 

hospital bed, Grandpa,

please don´t 

go.

Grandma said it would be heart disease from all the

junk food you ate- and would hide in the

automons to continue eating-that would clog up your

arteries and stop your

heart, but now, as your oxygen levels are

falling, I would give my lungs to the man who held me up on his

shoulders so he could show me the 

world, 

Grandpa, I love you; even with your

stents, you had the 

biggest, bravest

heart, and even with the 

scarring on your lungs, you ran me through the secrets of 

life, fishing, and 

carpentry;

I hope that soon, you´re somewhere you can 

breathe easy.