Control: Dead People
I, Dalton Lewis, want to reiterate and remember four people who meant something to me: grandparents. I am zero for four on grandparents. They are all dead. First to die was my grandfather on my mother’s side. I never knew him. He died of Parkinson’s when I was very young. I was a little baby when he died, breaking my mother’s heart. He was an instructor who taught people to fly airplanes in World War II and then sold tractors afterwards. He had three wonderful children, including my mother. I wish that I had known him. That’s why I don’t want to die — I want to know the further generations of my family. I want to see my sister’s son grow up.
Second to die was my other grandfather, a kind and quiet man on my father’s side. He loved the Detroit Tigers along with me and my dad. He went to the University of Michigan and was a lineman on the football team. He married my grandmother, my Nana, a titan in the Democratic Party and a legend in the Muskegon, Michigan community. He was always nice. I remember him having Parkinson’s too — before there were many meds to stop it. He died quietly in his sleep in the 1980’s. I don’t know if he lived until the Tigers won the World Series in 1984. He and Nana always brought gifts when they showed up. I loved them very much. I remember my mom told me he was dead while folding clothes to pack them to visit my Nana. I remember him dying and not knowing how to feel about it. I was maybe seven. I didn’t know how to behave but tried to be polite and respectful.
Third was my beloved Nana. She taught political science at Muskegon’s high school for a great many years. She always gave us gifts. She was a small little lady who loved a few glasses of wine after dinner. She fought for the Democratic Party for her entire life, even being a campaign coordinator when she knew that they were going to lose. She baked us apple pies and made German chocolate cake. She got Alzheimer’s in her old age. She stopped living alone in her home and complained bitterly about having to move. Then she started to live in a facility to take care of her. I remember not being able to function because of my schizophrenia and riding in the car to see Nana and knowing that she would hardly know who we were. My parents hated to see her and me hardly able to function. She would always lose her glasses — which were expensive to replace. She was still the most wonderful person that I have ever met.
Fourth was my Grandma on my mother’s side. She baked chocolate chip cookies and raised my mom. She lived in a tiny town in Pennsylvania named New Wilmington. I remember going there when I was young and seeing my cousins and hanging out and going to the ice cream shop and the pool and swimming and having fun with family. I remember that pool — we loved that place. It was the central hangout in New Wilmington. I was glad to be there. She lived to a grand old age, reading countless mystery novels. She inspired my mom to be a reader, and my mom inspired me to be a reader and a writer. I remember her playing Scrabble brilliantly against my mom and sitting in a chair in my family’s home, reading and smiling at me when I walked by. Neither one of us talked a lot, but I loved her very much.
Those were my grandparents. They are all dead. I don’t know what happens to people when they die. They might be in the afterlife. Maybe, just maybe, science will bring them back in hundreds of years. We can only hope. I just don’t want to forget that people came before us and lived through World War II and had children and those children made us. I want us to try to remember the generations that went before. I loved them very much, and I don’t want them forgotten.
Thanks, and take care, friends.
