This summer we held a memorial for my grandfather in Arlington Cemetery. His name will be on one of the niches in the columbarium. He was in the Navy and served in the Korean War. The service was short and concise. I think its precision and simplicity was well suited to my grandfather who was a high school and college math professor and liked things to be just right but not conspicuous. The chaplain was empathetic and caring and the soldiers who performed the flag ceremony were on point. As we said our formal goodbyes a trumpet’s song floated in the air above us.

My grandmother used to comment how they enjoyed when I visited because I’d sit all day and laugh as my grandfather told stories. He was a particularly gifted storyteller with the dry wit that ignites my science-loving and logic-focused brain. He told stories of the Navy (usually when he and his comrades were causing trouble), his struggles as a student (he went for a doctorate in math but didn’t finish his thesis because of a disagreement with faculty), or his adventures as a teacher (he had many years of teaching from which to draw).

In EMT lingo, my grandfather had an “extensive cardiac history.” When I called my grandmother after hearing of my grandfather’s passing she told me, “The EMTs who responded to my call were wonderful. You do good work.” She said that even though they couldn’t get him back. His heart had stopped and he had no cat-lives left. When my grandfather died, I’d been volunteering as an EMT for several months.

I’m still an EMT and I also work in an emergency department. An interesting thing about providing emergency medical care is that your mission is to lessen pain and ward off death, but you end up seeing a lot of both. You end up being there when medicine meets it limits and the time of death is pronounced. I sometimes wonder what the EMTs at my grandfather’s death thought. I wonder how they ran their emergency call. What did they do to make my grandmother feel like they’d done the right thing? I hope the families of my patients have the same impression when we determine it’s time to stop CPR.

I used to visit Arlington National Cemetery periodically when I lived in DC. I like cemeteries because I enjoy walking the tombs and imagining the histories of the people they memorialize. Now when I visit Arlington, I won’t have to invent my grandfather’s story because I know it. I’m a product of it. I think of him often, partly because I wish he’d send me some of his math-genius as I continue my medical studies. Mostly, I think of him because he is one of the few people I know who successfully and completely built a life he loved. His only unfinished business is the family he left, especially his wife, but we’ll join him again one day if afterlife exists. Until then, we’ll keep making stories worth telling just as he always encouraged us to do.

Photo Credit: Mary Lou (family friend)