My Grandpa Bill, the one I wrote about here, is dying. He has cancer, and probably won't even make it past Christmas. I hate death. It reminds me of my own mortality and resurrects the fear of unknown that is easier to forget about. It hurts like something unimaginable to know you are going to lose a loved one.

He will be 81 in January.

My grandpa is a stud. He was a rancher, I suppose. He grew up raising cattle and sheep and riding four-wheelers. His house always smelled of mud, fur, and leather. When I smell any combination of these, I am always pulled back in my memories and sensations to my grandparents' house of my youth:

We roasted hot dogs in a fire pit in his front yard. We spend hours upon hours swinging and flipping each other around in the hammock attached to two trees in his backyard. We sled down the snowy hills in front of his house on ancient rickety wood and metal sleds, probably crafted by his own hands. We braved the massive wood pile on the side of his house to hunt for litters of feral cats that always crawled about underneath. There was a new litter of them each season. We could always see their glow-in-the-dark eyes under the wood or under the porch. The only cat my grandpa and grandma claimed was the mother of all the liters, a mysterious cat they called Mister. We visited the "Noll" (sp?), a hill in front of their house to search for geodes and cool rocks to collect. Once, we even went to the Red Cliffs where, if you supremely lucky, you can still find a few Indian beads.

My grandpa is a man of knowledge and skills. He made dream catchers, wooden canes, and carved intricate, detailed designs into guns. My mom called him a "Jack of all trades" because he used to fix whatever broken things there where in my parents' house when he came to visit. He could sit down with someone and have a conversation about any aspect of history. I remember him having a conversation with a man once about the construction of the Panama Canal, in enough detail to make me think he had been there himself. I was amazed.

We visited him yesterday and he is so different than he used to be. When I walked in the room, he said, "Now, who is this one?"

"I'm Sarah, grandpa," I said.

"Oh yeah, that's right. I knew you in a different life!" he said, as calmly as anything. My heart tightened right up into a ball in my throat. The veil is thin for him. He kept saying other various things like that the entire time. He once touched my mom's hand and said, "Take me to heaven. Heaven is my home."

I don't like this. It hurts. It hurts to see my mom and the desperate moments in which I know she wishes there was something more she could do. But at the same time, I think there are others very excited to see him on the other side. I think it will be a happy reunion.