Leslie O Wilson : May 9, 1916 — May 25, 2006

And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breathes as I said to myself that I’d already taken too much today
As each descending peak of the LCD took you a little farther away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that out memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself

‘Cause there’s no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I’m thinking of what Sarah said that “Love is watching someone die”

So who’s going to watch you die?..

my grandfather — my mother’s father — died this morning, having been up & down healthwise, but declining surly ever since his wife died last september.

the whole family went down to southern illinois on may 7 to celebrate granddad’s 90th birthday.

this is basically how i saw him last. old, tired, sad.

my mother put a book together recently, a massive project, that she presented to granddad on christmas of 2005:

you can click the image below to read a page of it:

granddad was a storyteller. you had to be careful bringing up the war, or chickens, or cars, because if he got started, you were gonna be there awhile. 🙂

here’s an excerpt from the book mom put together:

What is your father’s name? What does he look like?

His name was Whorley Otto Wilson, and he was born August 26, 1888.

He was light complec’ted, although his father was dark complec’ted. He had two brothers that were dark complec’ted. He had two sisters that was fair skinned like Dad was. He was about six foot tall and thin.

He was quite a salesman. He could have sold sand to the Arabs or ice to the Eskimos. He always found time to find work for us three boys even when we was younger. He was a hard worker and worked hard at it. He was a firm parent and meant what he said. You could count on that. If he said it, he meant it.

and another, my favorite from the book:

How I met Miss Neva Ramona Johnson

Now we’re gittin’ down to the nitty gritty.

Well, I met her at a wake. Her aunt was laying corpse in her home over in Indiana. And she was there, and I was there. I was there with her cousin. It was his mother that passed away. But now, we didn’t meet that night. And I’d also seen her the next day at the funeral — but we didn’t meet then. Why somebody didn’t encourage us, I don’t know.

But that night, her cousin (James) Melbourne Sharp and I went to Poseyville to see another girl that we had in mind. I don’t know what we’d a’ done with her if we’d a got her, cause we took two cars. But she wasn’t home. There’s where she missed out on a good deal.

So we went into Poseyville, and I says to Jim, I says, “Ain’t that your cousin standing over there on the street?”

“Yes,” he said, “…pull over and I’ll introduce you.”

So he did, and I asked her if I could take her home.

She said, “Sure.”

I didn’t know she’d been planning on doing that. She’d been workin’ that, I think, `cause she’d inquired of her cousin Jim. Jim and I worked together. She knew where I worked. She knew how much I worked. She knew where I went to church. She knew how much I wen to church. She knew more about me than I knew myself. I thought it was my bright smile and my black Ford that she was taking up with. But it wasn’t.

So that’s how I first met her. And I took her home and, and I says, “Where can I turn this thing around?” And she says, “Well, drive it up here in the front yard. Everybody does. Just drive it up right up to the front porch.” So I drove the car up agin’ the steps, and before she stepped out of the car onto the steps to the house, she told me that she had been waitin’ for a man who didn’t gamble, didn’t drink, and one who went to church. And then she leaned over and kissed me. Then she got out, shut the door and run into the house. Well, I was a goner. Like that song says, She Had Me form Hellow. So that’s how we met. And that was July the 19th, 1939 and we’ve been together ever since.