Kintsugi Man

When my grandfather slipped while on that slow slope of dying that some people are burdened with and instead fell steeply, faster than ever, towards the final death at the base of it, I started a story.

He had spent his later years chronicling his incredible and unbelievable life and collecting these stories into a memoir. One he would no longer have the time to finish.

I had felt it was my duty, as the writer of his grandchildren and the comforter sheet of my family, to finish it.

He had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease before I could remember. My entire knowledge from such a great man consisted of advice to pass on before it was too late. Squeezing life lessons into love with a limited time in this world together. I was always prepared for him to die.

The title I chose was to reflect how I felt from the knowing of all of this: Chiseling Gravestones.

My Grandpop died this spring in an elder care home near the community of Reston, Virginia where he and my Bubby had spent their retirement (minus a small stint in Japan near Fukishima).

There, he fell asleep one night and the next morning he did not wake up. He stayed there, perfectly sleeping, dreamless, for a number of days. His body held out just enough to give time for goodbyes from those who loved him. Then, one night he passed away so easily that there was hardly a change.

I called my Bubby the next day, as she packed up his things, and picked up calls from the rest of my family all through the morning. She tried not to cry while on the phone with me. My brother asked why he was not crying harder.

Thinking about it all now, the story needs a different title. We have not been chiseling graves.That is hard work, backbreaking and thankless from the recipient of the finished product. It is not the work our relationship with my Grandpop has been.

So the story's rough draft has a new name: Kintsugi Man.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repair. When a pottery piece breaks, the artist does not throw it out – they fill the cracks with rippling gold until (although it is not the same and will not age nor decay at the same pace) it is whole. It can again hold water.

Since his diagnosis years ago broke his plans to be fully here with us until his death, this is the work my Grandpop has done. It was beautiful work, and it still held water.