My alarm goes off, though I don’t really need it.  I haven’t really slept at all.  Today is going to be hard and I know it.  Every fiber in me is begging me not to get up, to just stay in bed and come up with some excuse why I can’t go.  It would be easy enough; nobody asks too many questions when a man in his late sixties says he doesn’t feel up to something.  My knee has been bothering me a lot lately, and there promises to be a decent amount of walking.  Maybe that could be my excuse? As much as I want to skip out, though, I know I have to go.  My grandson wants to go, and how can I tell him no? I’m his grandpa; doesn’t that mean I am legally required to bend to every whim and fantasy he has? Plus, the creeping thought is always in the back of my mind that in the not-too-distant future he will be a teenager and probably want nothing to do with me.  I have to take advantage while he still thinks I’m cool, if kids his age even use the word “cool” anymore.  Still, of all of the adventures he could have chosen to take us on, why oh why did it have to be this? Of all the places to go and things to see on God’s green earth, Danny wants to go to the Healthcare Hero Memorial.

“Can’t you take him?” I asked Monte, Danny’s dad and my eldest son.

“He asked for you, Dad,” Monte replied to me.  “Also,” he continued, “it wouldn’t be the same if I took him”.

That was true. Monte, perhaps as a result of all of the holidays I had missed, ran about as far away from the healthcare field as he could.  I didn’t stop him; in fact, I encouraged it.  Being a physician was soul-crushing.  Monte, smartly, went into law.  He is a lawyer at a successful tax law firm.  He has never missed Christmas dinner.  In the 18 years that Monte lived under my roof, I had missed 6.

“You know there’s a reason I haven’t gone to that place!” I snapped back.

“I know, Dad,” Monte calmly replied.  “You don’t have to take him.  I wouldn’t blame you.  But I am not telling Danny.  If you don’t want to go, then you have to look Danny in the eyes and tell him yourself.  If you can do that, then you are a stronger man than I.”

Monte knew I wasn’t a stronger man than him.  Especially not when it came to Danny.

“What are you drinking, Grandpa?” Danny asks as I take a swig from my mug.

“Just some coffee Danny,” I reply.  “Coffee makes grandpa run.”

My coffee addiction is the result of a career spent absolutely wrecking my circadian rhythm. Day shifts, night shifts and all variations in between.  At the height of my career, I drank four cups a day.  I became so habituated to it that I could drink a big cup of Joe, then immediately go pass out in bed.  Honestly, as with many, less-healthy addictions, it became less about the stimulating effect and more about not crashing.  I have since weaned myself down to 2 cups a day, but I’m pretty sure if I tried to ever go below that, the cumulative caffeine withdrawal would kill me.  When I’m on my way out and can no longer swallow, somebody please run some coffee through my IV.

“Are you excited to see the memorial?” Danny asks me, snapping me out of my musings on life, death and coffee.

I turn slightly to look back at him.  He is sitting in the back seat, still quite a few years away from being old enough to ride shotgun, looking up at me with the big, blue eyes that he clearly got from his mother.  I want to tell him how I really feel.  I want to yell, “Hell no I’m not and the only reason I’m doing this is because I was too chicken-shit to tell you no!” But, of course, I say none of this.  Partially because his father would kill me if I introduced my eight-year-old grandson to the word “shit”.  But also because how can I look my sweet, innocent grandson in the eyes, my grandson who wanted to spend his Saturday with me instead of watching cartoons, and say any of that.  So I lie.

“Of course Danny.  I’ve wanted to see it for a long time,” I say to him.  I turn away as I finish the sentence.  I don’t want my face to betray anything.

…

We can start to see the outline of the memorial.  It’s still a few blocks away.  Yet, even from this distance, we can see the towering statue, looming large over the throngs of tourists bustling about to their various sightseeing destinations.

“What was it like, Grandpa?” Danny suddenly asks, looking up at me as he does so.

God, that’s a loaded question, I think to myself.  “What do you mean Danny?” I ask, hoping to buy some time.

“Well, the coronavirus pandemic sounds scary.  The virus made people very sick.  And everyone had to wear masks and stay home…” He pauses, clearly unsure how to finish out his thought.

“Yes, it was, Danny.  It was scary.  Grandpa was scared a lot,” I say.  I leave it at that.

There is so much more I could say.  The dread I felt when I heard that the first case had been discovered in the country, knowing that it was a matter of time before it made its way to my state.  How I wondered every time I went to work if I would bring the virus home to Monte.  All of the times I lay awake crying in bed, praying for the nightmare to end.