It was the most beautiful July day. The sky felt extra blue, there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The breeze was warm but not as scorching as it usually felt. Everything in my little world was normal. I was sitting on my bed with my dog, Amber. I was staring at the electric orange walls that surrounded me when I received possibly the worst phone call in my life thus far. With a shaky voice my mom said: 

“Hey, Chlo. What are you doing?” 

“Getting ready to go to lunch with Poppop.” I replied.

“We have to talk to you… when is he coming to pick you up?” 

“In about fifteen minutes, why?” I said. 

“We just want to give you the heads up before he comes. Poppop was diagnosed with stage 4 Leukemia this morning and he only has one month to live.” 

The line was silent aside from the sniffling and my whispering of “oh my god”. 

I sat in my house awaiting my Poppop’s arrival. I put on a concealer to try to hide the fact that my eyes were red and puffy from crying. All I could think of was all of the memories that I had shared with this amazing man. While he didn’t live with us, it felt like he did. He worked for my dad and was at my house every single day of my life growing up. He was less of a grandparent and more of a friend to me. I would come home from school each day to the biggest hug, a game of backgammon, and a pack of saltine crackers that he brought back from lunch. For some reason, he always saved those for me. Now that was all shattered. My phone buzzed: “Hi Chlo, I’m here. Love, Poppop.” He wrote every text as a full letter, likely because he was an english teacher for the majority of his life. I loved that about him. 

As I walked outside and opened the car door he was extremely chipper. In his deep, loud voice he asked me:

“Where do you want to go for lunch?” 

“Anywhere is fine with me, you pick.” I said trying to avoid eye contact.

He could tell something was off. 

“So they told you the news?”

“Yeah, they called me a few minutes ago.”

“Well look, don’t be upset. I’m actually pretty happy about it! I’ve been through a lot in my life and I see dying as a comfort.” 

I didn’t know how to respond, who answers a terminal diagnosis like that? He had been through a lot. He lived through the great depression, was in the army during WWII, had lost one of his sons and his wife. 

“Now, let’s go get a cheesesteak and a Pepsi because I don’t give a shit!” This type two diabetic was looking at the bright side. 

Poppop didn’t want to go to a ton of doctors appointments. He knew his fate and he was acceptant of it. However, my dad was not quite as ready for him to go. They were best friends. I guess that’s what happens when you lose half of your family and the only other surviving member lives across the country in Seattle. Poppop loved my dad so much. When dad asked him to reconsider going to doctor’s appointments, he did. He went just for my dad. I didn’t realize that at the time. However, looking back he didn’t do that for himself. 

My dad inquired about chemotherapy, radiation, and medical trials. My Poppop silently sat in on the conversations. 

“Chemotherapy could possibly extend his life but it would make him uncomfortable” his oncologist said.

“I don’t want it.” 

“Just reconsider, dad. You could live longer.” 

I don’t quite know what happened between the car ride from the hospital home but I do know that a chemotherapy appointment had been set up for the next morning. 

Poppop went to chemo every other day for about two weeks. He was technically on track to live longer than a month at this point. However, each time I went to visit him he was a little bit less of my grandfather. A man who loved food more than anyone I know suddenly had no appetite. He couldn’t go for his daily walks and was even hallucinating. In fact, he actually knew that he actually knew he was hallucinating and would joke about it. He was putting on the world’s bravest face. 

I remember how long those two and a half months felt. He did make it past the one month diagnosis that he received, but it was not pretty. I spent every day at my poppop’s house. His girlfriend was on a trip to Africa and he did not want to ruin her trip by informing her of the bad news (especially when there was nothing she could do about it). Therefore, my family was deemed the sole caretakers. My dad moved into his house and the rest of us spent all day there once our daily responsibilities were met. I would wake up, go to school, go to volleyball practice, then to my poppop’s. I repeated this routine every day. 

However, as time moved forward I recognized how unhappy my poppop was. As an extremely active person, the increasing immobility was disheartening for him. We would push him around in his wheelchair outside just so that he could have a change of scenery from the worn in brown leather lazy boy that he spent his days seated in. No matter what method we tried, comfort still seemed out of reach to him. The strong man that I had known my whole life was deteriorating right in front of my eyes. 

As I sat in my fourth period ceramics class I got a text from my “uncle” (a close family friend). I can still remember the pit in my stomach as I saw his name on my screen. I knew that this meant that my beloved poppop had passed. I sprinted out of class into the hallway and called my sister: 

“Is it true?!” 

“Yes. We’re on our way to come get you from school right now.” 

The rest of those moments are a blur. However, I remember vividly calming down and thinking to myself “why am I so upset?” My grandfather was already gone for a couple of days essentially. The past few days he was too weak to even speak. The only words he had the strength to say was “I love you”. 

My dad had done all of this out of love. He loved him so much that he wanted him to live longer. At the time of this whole occurrence I had not thought twice about my father’s decisions. On the other hand, looking back I have realized just how selfish people can be. They say that love is selfless. In my experience, this could not be further from the truth. I believe that love is selfish. If you truly love someone it is too hard to make rational decisions regarding them. It took a tragedy in my life to realize people will do what benefits them – even if it is subconscious. While I would like to say that in the unfortunate event that history repeats itself, I would be able to make the right decision for the person at hand, I cannot say this with confidence. Sadly, as a human being myself, I am also inherently selfish.