memoir

Paw Paw, A Tribute

Joseph Angelo Angelette

January 11, 1929 - March 5, 2011

"Have you ever heard a joke so many times you've forgotten why it's funny? And then you hear it again and suddenly it's new. You remember why you loved it in the first place." Will Bloom, Big Fish

Today's Friday, March 11. Which means if I had gone to visit Paw Paw 1 week ago, he would have been alive and I would have surely heard at least 1 more story and 1 more joke…

My memories of Paw Paw are all about the stories and the jokes.

When I think about him, I think about Paw Paw being extremely strong-willed, stubborn, intelligent, and an absolute brilliant story teller…

There have been so many occasions when I have sat down, resolved to write down the stories and jokes Paw Paw has told, and the same number of times I realized how inadequate I was for the task. Some people just have a presence and a sense of timing that is impossible to replicate. He was that kind of man.

This was such an unexpected death to me. I've always sort of boasted that I've never lost anyone I really loved, that everything remained the same for me no matter what. I never really planned to lose him. I didn't get a chance to say good bye. I knew he was sick, and I started to realize the urgency of the task of writing his stories in increasing frequency over the years as his life and health began to slip away, but still I have this list of story outlines which serves only to remind me of him telling the story rather than bother trying to reproduce the story itself..

"the workers getting off the oil rig in a terrible storm by swinging on a rope to the boat"

"something about a turtle in a trunk in Mexico"

"joke about a drunk bus driver and so a monkey was driving instead"

"china men in a barrel on a boat"

"drinking leftover wine as alter servers"

"giant indians rescuing him off of a bog when he was a kid"

"My-Ammy"

"A Pari"

I spent every Monday of my childhood going to Maw and Paw's house after piano lessons for red beans & rice or spaghetti. Often, Paw would pick us up and we'd buy some roadside satsumas on our way back. It was always a family affair in my family. My cousins would show up and Aunts and Uncles, we'd all hang out and play outside, listen to Paw's stories and jokes over dinner… Paw would often teach me tricks to do my homework. I loved Math and so did he, and he taught me genius tricks to do math that I still to this day use… He was also a puzzle man, and we'd play the cracker barrel puzzle. He was so proud when he figured out the trick and never messed it up again as far as I know.. We'd always always have a crossword puzzle to work on. Always. I have so many good memories of Paw. I also spent almost every Thanksgiving and Christmas day hanging out with Paw Paw. I am so lucky.

I realized during his funeral ceremonies this week how far-reaching his powers were, though. No one had the same memories that I had, but everyone had something that was so powerfully individually meaningful in one way or another. My brother remembers Paw for watching John Wayne movies with him. It's funny, I knew Paw loved those movies, but that wasn't our thing. We had our own thing. One after another, people brought up their own individual stories and memories, all unique and special. He had a gift with that.

I can remember visiting with him even recently. No one wanted me to move to Utah and no one wants me to stay here. But Paw had stories to tell me about Utah. He remembers going to Kanab on a long road-trip, which is where I happened to go to my Rural Rotation during residency. It was apparently a famous "film" town for John Wayne movies, and both Maw and Paw remember a cafe they went to in that tiny little town in the middle of nowhere Utah. And suddenly, we were reconnected in that way.

I love him so much and miss him so much already.

I know this journaling is a mechanism of healing for me, and I do not want to abuse his memory. But I also have a story to tell. He could have told the story better, but by some odd twist of fate, I was there and now he is gone, so now I will tell this story.

Paw Paw died in the best way I can imagine.

Here is my story.

I walked back from the gym to my parents' condo on St Charles Ave. My Granny and Gramps were there eating dinner as well as my aunts and uncles and cousins and some of my dad's friends. We had Granny's gumbo and little sausages.

No sooner had I emptied my plate than mom came inside with a look and voice of emotional panic which I have only seen once before. She took me outside and told me "Sounds like Paw Paw had a stroke, I'm going to the hospital." I ran to throw on some clothes and shoes and went with her and dad, giving everyone a brief general message…

We called Maw on the way down the bayou. Dad put her on speakerphone. She sounded calm and panicked at the same time. EMS was there. He fell and couldn't move or feel his left side and also couldn't speak. She explained that he had woken up that morning with a severe headache and told her he thought he had a small stroke. He had slurred speech and was drooling, but "just a little." He was conversing and able to eat throughout the day and overall was doing fine. His headache subsided with Tylenol. She said she kept trying to get him to talk to a doctor, but he didn't want to. "He's so hard-headed." The weather was severe enough that day that they even missed the 4pm mass, which they always attend and they decided not to chance the weather to go to the Emergency Dept. The weather kept them inside. Maw Maw made him supper which they ate together. He thanked her for a nice meal, then went to the bathroom where he fell. She couldn't get him up and brought him a chair to lift himself. He couldn't do that either. She said he was responding by squeezing her hand. "Now he's not and just looks like he's sleeping peacefully," Maw says. She called family and they called 911. Now EMS is loading him onto the ambulance to go to the hospital. We'll meet you there.

---Silence---

We drive up to the Race Track and I hop into my uncle's car to ride down with him. He asks me to teach him about what is going on, so I do. As I'm explaining medical jargon and pathology, my biggest fear is that Paw Paw will lose his ability to function. He can't use his left side, I keep thinking, and it will be a terrible and long rehab process which he will hate more than anyone I know. He can't talk and he will hate that even more. I shiver at the thought that I might walk in to the hospital with Paw on a ventilator, but I keep that thought to myself. To me, the options were that he was going to be catastrophically debilitated or be back to himself. It never occurred to me that he might die.. Not possible.

We drive up to the hospital and the ambulance is at the entrance. We run inside and Maw is sitting in the waiting room. She looks up at me and says "He stopped breathing on the way, they're pressing on his chest."

At that point I knew he was dead. They are going through the medical heroics that we all consider necessary, but Paw as I knew him was gone. I absolutely lost it.

I kneeled next to Maw sobbing, apologizing for my lack of composure, but grasping on to her hand for support. She proceeded to tell me all about her day sequentially. It is beautiful. They did a crossword puzzle together. They had dinner together. They were alone together and he knew she was there, he was squeezing her hand in his last moments of consciousness…

The doctor came in and kneeled across from Maw and said "I'm sorry but your husband has passed on." Maw looked at her and answered "I was really hoping you weren't going to say that."

The doctor and nurse offered for us to go in to the room, which we did. He was laying there with a nasal airway and a intubation tube, and I was again so relieved to not have to see these artificial pieces of crap which would have worked only to prolong my grandma's suffering.. I touched him and he was warm. I was so close.. So close to being able to say good bye.

We gathered around him once the priest got there to say the last rites. To say good bye to Paw?

Do these things happen for some reason? Why did we impulsively take a picture with our whole family and Paw last time I saw them over Christmas? Why? We've never done that before. I didn't have a new camera. We just did it. And that's my last memory with Paw Paw. A perfect Christmas dinner filled with stories and jokes.

I will never know why I didn't go to see him last week. Or why he died 8 hours before I was supposed to fly back to Utah… Maybe things don't happen for a reason, but sometimes it sure feels like it does… Because for me, a peaceful death for my Paw Paw is these best wish I could have had granted… A prayer that was answered so clearly that it's hard to deny. Peace at death is something I have come to value more than most things, for some strange reason. I have seen so much unnecessary suffering and unrest at death over that past few years. It gives me such an extraordinary sense of peace to have been there and listened to Maw's story about Paw Paw's death.

The thing is, I never had to visit Paw in the hospital. He was never laying in bed, dying. He was there, just as I always knew him, and then he wasn't there anymore. People just don't die that way any more. No one. Except Paw Paw. And I guess that doesn't surprise me all that much.

Paw Paw is the sort of man who no one ever wanted to lose… or expected to… or will.

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"A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal." Will Bloom, Big Fish