Individual Response 3 ("The Loss of a Friend")

The final section of Night really lifted me out of my "adapted stupor." I felt that the unfolding events spoke to me quite powerfully, and I could very much relate to Elie's emotions. His account of his father's death was extremely jarring. Elie recalls the event when he realizes his father has been sent to the crematorium: "I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep...[I]f I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!..." (112). Just this past year on May 6, my family and I lost someone very close to us: my grandfather. He was the strongest and kindest person I ever knew. Ten years prior to his death, he was diagnosed with severe emphysema and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) due to his smoking habits and had chronic nerve pain from working with chemicals for most of his life. At one point, when he was in the hospital, the doctors told our family that he had not long to live, at the most a year. Five years later, he had recovered dramatically, despite being in and out of emergency treatment. I never knew exactly how many times he was in the hospital, for my parents confessed to me later that they sometimes kept secret when he was in treatment so I wouldn't worry about him. Although he was in constant pain, he would conceal it whenever my brother and I were around because he did not want his illness to control his relationship with his grandsons. That was just the kind of person he was. Even as I am writing this, I can feel the tears welling in my eyes from the memory. I carry so much guilt with me from the past; I knew how much pain he was in, I could see through his facade. Whenever we visited him, or he us, I barely conversed with him because that sad, frail being in front of me was not my grandfather. He was still the same man, but I could not bear to see him that way. I will never know how much it hurt him that his own grandson would barely talk to him. "Doesn't he still love me?"

When he became sick again, we oddly enough visited him less and less. We all knew, and so did my grandfather, that he could not continue for much longer. My mother had told me that the part she hated about each visit was standing inside the elevator and watching the doors close on him as he sat in his wheelchair opposite us, smiling and waving goodbye. Possibly his last. His life was a timebomb; the numbers counted down endlessly in the back of our minds, but we never knew how close "the day" was. We all waited with bated breath, waited for the flood of emotions to sweep away our steadily crumbling composure. About two weeks before his death, he told my mother that he had not much longer to live. As my grandmother and my father napped in the living room, he sat with my mother at the breakfast table and watched my brother and I playing in the back yard. He told her that he was proud of us, that we had matured into incredible young men. His work was finished, he was satisfied with the family he had helped to build. It was time to move on, but he implored her not to cry when he was gone. I was completely unaware that this conversation ever existed. The morning of Friday May 6, 2011, he died peacefully in his sleep. I had no idea that when I woke up to hear my mother turning the ignition and driving away that I would lose a part of my soul later in the day. That afternoon, my father picked me up from baseball practice and had a word with my coach before driving my brother and I to my grandparents' apartment to meet my mother and grandmother. At the time, my grandfather had been living there on hospice. This time, something was different. My brother asked, "Where's Grampa?" The tension in the smoke-scented room was nearly tangible. At this point, my mother burst into tears and proceeded to explain that Grampa was no longer with us. My brother began weeping immediately at this news. I stayed silent; no salty tears of saddness dripped down my cheeks. Doubtless I was devastated, but shock was the more prevalent emotion. An entire day had passed by, and the world had continued normally on its busily ignorant schedule. Meanwhile, my heart was shattered. I successfully made it through the weekend without crying. On Monday, before the first bell had even rung, I broke down on my teacher's shoulder in the middle of the hallway. I didn't care. I had lost the man who practically raised me as a child when my parents had to work; the man who bounced me on his knee and sang nonsense songs as I laughed; the man who loved me with every ounce of energy he had.

Two days ago, I sat in the car with my mother on our way to pick my brother up from his friend's house. Previously, I had told her that I finished Night and that it was one of the most emotionally moving books I've ever read. I reiterated to her the scene mentioned above, where Elie feels a sense of relief with his father dead. My eyes were focused straight ahead. When I finally looked over at my mother, she was silently crying. She then confessed that this was exactly how she felt all those years with my grandfather. For nearly a decade, she took care of him, despite the stressfulness of her efforts, and although she loved her father, she was almost relieved that she didn't have to suffer the burden any longer. She felt guilty, just as I had, for her thoughts and actions. I reassured her that these feelings were normal, that it is an immense task to care for a loved one while simultaneously maintaining a family and work life. In the end, I've learned that, sometimes, we are uncertain about how we feel, especially when it comes to love. We are flawed beings and act on impulse in our actions, and our emotions. Unfortunately, this also makes humans very tumultuous and unpredictable creatures as we oftentimes do not know how to cope with inner conflict. Yet we must understand, in tragic and scarring events such as death, that the past is unchangeable. One can dwell forever on the past and never step into the future. Just as my grandfather said, we must move on. The world will not wait for you. Keep your memories at hand; do not forget the ones who have died, for it is only when we forget them they truly die. But do not by any means stop moving forward.