Senior endured the multiple health problems of the very old, the daily penances of bowel and urethra, of back and knee, the milkiness climbing in his eyes, the breathing troubles, the nightmares, the slow failing of the soft machine.––Rushdie


A running critique of American culture, one that has become a cliché, holds that Americans don’t value their elderly like people in the old world. The nuclear family being the standard unit of existence, the elderly are confined to retirement communities, nursing homes, or other rarely seen quarters. The elders, as an ideal old world would argue, are not to be treated this way; they are integral to the family as supplemental guides to both their children and grandchildren and should properly assume their post with the regal air proper to one with white hair.

Things are never that simple. The dignity of hard won wisdom decays slowly with the flesh; the beautiful wrinkles of a full life stiffen with the bones they cover; the mind slips and breaks hips irreparably.

I visited my ancestral home village, Sankapalli, and visited my dead grandfather’s younger brother. My grandfather was a police officer after independence before his eyes began to fail. His pension days were filled with reading, a task made less daunting by the numerous eye surgeries that his two doctor-daughters-in-America made possible. These daughters were the product of a union that emphasized education above all; in his last years, however, he wasn’t able to see those precious printed words.

And suddenly, here was his little brother honoring the dead sibling by wearing the same face. The resemblance was uncanny; my Mom noticed it first. He had recently suffered a series of minor strokes, suddenly going blank and falling flatly on the stone floor, distressing his wife. He stood waiting for his guests, us, to sit down first but took a seat on his family’s insistence. I sat directly in front of him and held his hand. They told him my name and asked if he remembered me. He tilted his head left and right: yes, he remembered.

My Telugu failed me miserably and my body tensed from the awkwardness. He couldn’t care. I looked at his downcast eyes as they floated through their milky paths and wondered when I too would be disconnected.

“Are you doing well?” I asked politely, trying to get a few words of him
“Yes”

And that was the end of that.

My mother asked him questions about his health: when was the last time he had fallen? Was he in any pain? Is he visiting his neighbors? Is he reading?

That was not my role. I was merely a grandson paying proper homage to an elder. What does one say to another who is dying? Whatever questions I wanted to ask were in a foreign tongue made worse by an incomprehensible accent. There was no need for a dialogue when presence sufficed, no need for questions when the final answer was so close, no need for a story about to end. I simply wanted to drink his aura and digest these final lessons.

People can die again. My grandfather will die again in his little brother. And again, his grandson will wonder if such a death is a punishment or a blessing.