Today we’ll be burying Rachel’s grandpa Joe. With his death, all of our grandparents are gone. Rachel said this week, “Everyone moves up a notch in the pecking order now.”
Joe had an enviable death. He was visiting with Rachel’s dad and another friend of his. It had been a really good day. He had been looking at the calendar of day trips put on by his assisted living facility, planning to go on one. His friend had arrived to take him out to an early supper. Rachel’s dad was there to help them out. Joe had on his western shirt and asked his friend to get his cowboy hat. Rachel’s dad said, “You look nice! Let me get a picture.” So he took one, turned to show it to Joe’s friend, and heard Joe make a snoring noise. Rachel’s dad assumed Joe was playing some kind of joke (being a lifelong jokester), turned back to look at him, and knew his dad had died. A nurse was fetched, some attempts to rouse him were made, he made a couple more snoring sounds, but it was over. Though it was quite a shock to Rachel’s dad and Joe’s friend, it could not have been more gentle and peaceful.
He died sitting in his chair with his legs crossed and no one moved him. The immediate family quickly gathered. The team from the mortuary was slower to arrive. By the time they did arrive, the siblings were all sitting around, talking to each other, with Joe still sitting in his chair, to all appearances asleep. The guy wheeled in the gurney and looked around, very confused. “Am I in the right room?”
As others remarked, Joe would have been very pleased to know he played one final joke on that poor guy from the mortuary.