FaceTime

Every other close call had been characterized by such hubbub — so much preparation, so many extra phone calls, and so many cross-country trips just in case. This time, it was quiet. Maybe that’s how I knew it was the end.

Every few weeks, I’d give a call with updates on classes and friends and the weather. I’d make sure to call when his health had taken a turn for the worse, and he’d always brush off or minimize his ailments. I gave him the meaningless happy chatter I felt I should, because how frivolous my problems must have been in comparison to his own.

He always reminded me of the color yellow. I remember the yellow bag that my family used on treks to the beach that had a picture of me, my older brother, and him — my younger brother wasn’t even alive yet. I remember the yellow of the honey-lemonade he made my older brother, the star of the show, stricken with laryngitis on opening night of the school play when we were in middle school. I remember the yellow light that streamed through his apartment in sunny Los Angeles, where I was always astounded during wintertime visits, coming from Connecticut; I grew to associate him with that same warmth and sunshine. I remember his kind but measured smile that was eager to appear and reluctant to fade, even when he wasn’t feeling well; the aura he exuded was always, always a sunny yellow.

My mother had called him the day before, and then called me. She’d warned me that it was difficult to have a conversation, and to keep my expectations low.

When I called that evening, I was surprised that my call had been picked up — I’d tried a few times in the past week or so, unsuccessful. I heard the voice of an unfamiliar woman — his nurse, I assumed — explain that his granddaughter was calling. It took her a few attempts for him to understand.

“Tia!” He exclaimed, before a breath rumbled through his body. “It’s so nice to talk to you,” he said. Or, at least, “It’s so nice to talk to you,” he meant — it was difficult to make out what he was saying; each word arrived isolated, and weak, and alone.

“I’m so happy I caught you!” I responded, trying to sound cheerful. And with that fled each and every word I’d ever learned from the tip of my tongue to the back of my throat to someplace far, far, far away, in the opposite direction of my grandpa.

As I stared at the ceiling, or the floor, or into space, trying to connect with someone so incredibly distant, I was alarmed to feel my phone buzz in my hand against my cheek; I looked down to see that my grandfather was FaceTiming me. I’m ashamed to admit that I thought he had made a mistake — a fumble with this thumb, not sure where to put his fingers; my assumption was only affirmed by my view of pink flesh covering the camera when I accepted the FaceTime request.

But then I was lifted and placed into my grandfather’s hands, FaceTiming my grandfather for the first time in my life.

My mother had warned me about the thinness of his face. His face wasn’t thin, no — it seemed…empty. It hung over the same frame that it always did, skin like a balloon in the cold, but it wasn’t narrow the way I’d expected it would be. What surprised me most was the peppering of white whiskers across his face. He seemed a stranger to my eyes. My grandpa had never had whiskers. It had never occurred to me that of course he grew facial hair, he was usually just clean-shaven.

I tried to keep my tears from falling, although I saw in the image of myself on the bottom right corner of the screen that my face was pale and my eyes rimmed with red. I hoped, sincerely, that he didn’t notice. The only time he FaceTimed his granddaughter shouldn’t be characterized by sniffles.

“It looks like you’ve FaceTimed me! Did you mean to?”

“I did!”

“I’m impressed!”

“Well, it was my nurse, really.”

“Even so, I’m impressed.”

Silence. A breath, a shake, a rattle, a breath. Silence.

I wasn’t sure which words would be my last. I wasn’t sure which words I should use. What do you say to someone on their deathbed? “It’s so nice to talk to you, but FaceTiming you is the real surprise.”

“Well, I’m doing real well here,” said my grandpa. I’m sure some of it was the meds, but I think some of it was his humble tendencies, his disposition, too. At the end of his words he put his phone to his ear to better hear my response, so I could see little more than blurred shapes and colors. As I started to respond, floundering, it seemed in the moment to matter less to me which words I used, precisely, as long as I kept on talking, so he could hear his granddaughter’s voice. So, although I was desperately unsure of what to say, I spoke.

I spoke about classes. I told him what we were reading in my English class, because I knew he loved books; for every birthday and Christmas growing up I’d received one of his favorites in the mail. I spoke about swing dancing, a new deep love of mine, which I discovered after the last time I’d seen him in person. I only learned from my grandma in my grandpa’s last few days that it had once been one of his great loves, too, at which he’d been incredibly talented. I never danced with him.

When his breath had reached its last reserves and so had my small talk, when all other topics had escaped me, and I still couldn’t think of the right thing to say, I spoke about fall. I spoke of the mountains and the leaves; the warm, sharp red-gold hues on the backdrop of soft indigo and violet to a man who had lived on the east coast during med school before migrating back to Los Angeles.

I could tell he was fading fast. When his nurse took his phone from his ear and held it in front of him once more, I knew it was time for me to wrap it up.

“Anyway, I’m sending lots of love and hugs from Vermont,” I said, cheesy as it was. What do you say to someone on their deathbed? “And how lovely it was to get to FaceTime you as well.” The nurse put the phone back into my grandfather’s hands.

“What a great memory,” my grandfather sighed, in a moment I try to convince myself was a break into lucidity.

I won’t tell you my last words to my grandfather, nor his to me. But we told them to each other face to face, each one filled with love, although we were separated by a country. Soon after, his nurse whisked away his phone, giving me an apologetic smile. Before she did, though, although I was here and he was there, we could smile at each other, and hold each other, and tell each other what mattered.