By Kirsten Nielson

I didn't cry when my grandfather died. He had always been the quiet old man, sitting off near the house in his lawn chair, while we all galloped through the yard screaming and tumbling in the grass. We continued our games of hide-and-seek or basketball without really taking any particular notice of his watchful eyes.

When he eventually grew too ill and too feeble to sit out and watch us, and when he was at last resigned to a hospital bed, we didn't really notice. We all knew grandpa was sick, but we didn't understand, and his gradual disappearance from our lives just didn't have a big effect on us.

I remember when my dad came into my bedroom and told me he was gone. I didn't feel anything for a long time. I went upstairs and ate my dinner, we had green beans, then I did my homework.

It was almost a relief in our house. For months we had all watched him slowly wither away. We made frequent visits to see him and grandma, and we'd all heard his incoherent cries from the kitchen, where his hospital bed was set up right next to the old wood-burning stove. It wasn't until those last few months of his life that I started to realize how terrible his illness was.

As Parkinson's disease took control of his life he began to pray for death, and when he was no longer coherent, we prayed for him. All hope for his recovery had long ago disappeared and his shaking continued to grow more and more violent.

Hearing him call out my grandmother's name, over and over and over in mindless desperation, made me feel like my insides had been carved out. I felt completely gutted and afraid. I knew this man, my father's father, was a good man, though I had never really known and understood him. And I knew he was dying, and it hit me as to how unfair his suffering was. The entire family had begun to question why God would not simply let him die. There was no respite from his pain except through death, and he was ready. We were all ready.

My dad and my uncles took his body to the home he had always loved. He was buried in Montana, where he'd lived and worked for most of his life, and where his ancestors were buried. Where my ancestors are buried. Where he could finally rest.