Yesterday was The Grandmother’s funeral, and here she is in her final resting place. Well, a little more than six feet above her final resting place, but you get my drift. It was a nice ceremony despite the fact that I was tapped to deliver the eulogy. The service was done in Korean, and I mixed it up but did it mostly in English. Then we went to the grave site. After most of the mourners left, we family privately dumped earth on her grave.

Now we’re starting the process of cleaning up the apartment. Actually, the more accurate way of describing it is I’m making my mom and aunts clean up the damn place since they’re responsible for most the shit that has accumulated in this place.

I’m sad, but my emotions are blocked. I’m numb, perhaps a little shell-shocked, perhaps filled with anxiety on what my future holds. To be honest, I don’t know what’s going on with me. People ask how I’m holding up, and I don’t know the answer. I’m not grieving or weeping or anything like that, but I don’t feel right, either.

Oh wait. I have gin!!!! YAY GIN!

The unfortunate part is that in my experience, guys with visible abdominal squares are pretty shitty at sex. And speaking of sex, I’m slowly trying to reclaim parts of my apartment as my own. Take for instance my medicine cabinet:

Hot.

I saw the pale lifeless husk of her body and completely broken down. I didn’t notice any details, just what was left of my grandmother, the woman who helped raise me, the woman who survived Japanese occupation, a World War, a Civil War and even her own offspring.

It wasn’t after I composed myself and made phone calls to the rest of the family that I went back in for a closer look. She had a hint of a smile, a smile that showed she was happy to be rid of this avatar, that her pain would be gone, that she was headed to her god. Or maybe it was a mischievous smile of a woman who decided to die at 12:10 am. Nevertheless, despite the broken down body that failed her being right there, with that smirk she seemed at peace just lying there.

My mom was the last person in our family to see her alive, and I am so far the only person in the family to see her dead. Aside from that initial burst of tears, I’ve been calm. I got home from the nursing home at around 2:30 and couldn’t fall asleep until 4. Unlike the dreams I had the other night that were filled with The Grandmother, last night was peaceful. I slept for a solid five hours until more rounds of phone calls and text messages this morning.

To be honest, I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. Sure there is some sadness, but I’m feeling more empty than anything else I think. I guess this is why I feel compelled to write, to sort of deal with all of this shit. Everyone else in the family is holding up well, so I guess that’s minor miracle.

Now on to plan the funeral (which, thankfully, I am not doing.)

The whirr of the oxygen machine hits you when you enter her room. Its constant low-frequency percussion fills the silence of the room as if the sound of death was slowly creeping its way closer to The Grandmother. On Monday it wasn’t necessary. By Wednesday, it was needed. And here today on Friday, I am coming to terms that The Grandmother will be dead very soon.

My mom called me late last night in tears while she was visiting The Grandmother. She told me what I already knew and am struggling to deal with, that The Grandmother looks to be giving up. It’s a marked change from the normal conversations I have with my mom. Usually she talks about all the food she fed her — after all she has the mystifying talent of getting The Grandmother to eat. But last night she was in tears because she couldn’t get The Grandmother to eat one bite.

When I visited The Grandmother today, she barely acknowledged I was there. With the oxygen tube in her nose, she barely opened her eyes and weakly nodded her head. While I don’t have my mother’s skills in feeding her, I am usually able to get The Grandmother to eat. But she can’t swallow anything. Not the pureed food they serve her at the home. Not even water. Not her medication.

Even though I’m an atheist and my reading Korean sucks, there I was reading her the first chapter of First Corinthians in my broken white-boy accented Korean reading words I didn’t believe but which I hoped would sooth her soul.

Her hospice nurse came by just as I was ready to leave, and we discussed her deteriorating condition. She told me that they were going to change her status as “actively dying” and will now stop by to check up on her every morning. I nodded and agreed with this assessment. Then as I was walking the hall, I broke down sobbing. Then when I got inside my car it became weeping for a good minute. The emotions of it all just hit me.

Reading WebMD’s article on signs of impending death for the elderly, The Grandmother has all the signs:

Meet Chantal. She is a sexy black 2013 Honda Accord LX. She has an iPod connection, alloy wheels, backup camera. She is also my new car.

This is the first time I’ve had to buy a new car. My first car was a 1987 Honda Accord that was a hand-me-down from an uncle. When that died in 2003, I got another uncle’s 2002 Toyota Camry. So going into this, I was expecting the worst.

The funny thing is Chantal was the first car I test drove. I ended up driving three cars, but she fit me best. I was surprised how painless the entire process was. Perhaps it was because I got her through Carmax, but I was expecting the worst.

So here it is, the car I will be driving for hopefully the next 15 years.

I realize just how much of an outsider I am sometimes. I’m not saying that as if I’m ashamed of it — of all the things I’m ashamed of myself, my status within a community is not one of those things. But sometimes it does put a dent into fully enjoying something.

The Bubba Bang party at Faultline on Saturday was quite interesting. The music was fun, and it did get me to shake my booty a little. Or it could have been the Hendricks and tonics that I was pouring down my gullet. And of course, being there with Yobo and being bitchy Heathers was a blast!

But one of annoying things of going to these bear parties is seeing some of these fagolas desperate trying to project masculinity. There was a flock of these butchies close by, and they had to have butch drinks, move in a butch way, have butch body hair, butch facial hair. It’s such a bore.

Sure, being butch is fine, but once in a while you have to throw in a little bit of nelly, right? Whatever image of masculinity these little fagolas have in their mind, it’s too fucking bad. We are faggots. We don’t have to fit into these nice little hetero-normative boxes.

As the night wore on, Yobo was getting more and more belligerent against these fagolas. He was about ready to throw his glass into the crowd, and I stopped him because he does frequent the Faultline and didn’t want to see him banned. But the breaking point is when I saw a tattoo of one of the butch fagola’s arms:

Two words: bitch, puh-lease. I told Yobo he could do whatever he saw fit. We realized it was our cue to depart.

For some reason I remembered parties of ages ago (pre-9/11) where I never noticed these things. Then again, I was probably way too drunk and young and stupid to notice. But now, sometimes, I don’t know where I fall since I’m not entirely butch and not entirely nelly. Okay, cue the Britney Spears…

Well that was fast, wasn’t it? Just over a week after I took The Grandmother to the emergency room, we placed her in a hospice care facility yesterday. At the hospital when the case manager told me they were able to place her, I cried tears of relief. I get a little bit of my life back while The Grandmother will be looked after by nurses 24/7.

I’m so tired, though. Days of being right next to The Grandmother for over 12 hours at a time, changing diapers, trying to get her to eat when she couldn’t even lift her head up much less sit up. That is done. I guess now I just have to brace myself for the inevitable family fights, but that I can just ignore all of that nonsense.

Ever present in the back of my mind is the fact that The Grandmother is going to die soon, and that is okay. She is 87 and led a full life. She got to see her great-grandchildren, she traveled all over the world, she accomplished a lot for someone who was sickly her entire life.

But last night I really needed to let off steam, so my Wifey Daniel and I went out barhopping in DTLA where 3 gin-and-tonics really got me very happy especially with all my pent-up horniness. Hell, I haven’t even talked about having sex with a 23-year old several weeks ago and all of the existential questions it brings up for me.

Regardless, I needed to let off some steam last night, and I was very happy it was with Daniel.

I want to thank all the well-wishers out there, both public and private. One of the private messages I received said that I deserve to with the grandson of the year award. While this is sweet, I replied that this is not an award I want to win. Lay of the Century? Sure, I’ll take that.

The Grandmother is back home — the hospital released her on Saturday after two nights which is an important fact to remember. She still doesn’t have the strength or the energy to use the bathroom on her own. Even with the portable commode we bought for her next to her bed, she is unable to get up to use it. So we have her in diapers.

Of course, The Grandmother still thinks she is able to do use the bathroom properly. Yesterday I caught her trying to crawl to the bathroom which is on the other end of our apartment. She didn’t make it that far, and her shit oozed out of her diaper and leaked through her pants and onto our carpet.

All of us are agreed that she needs to go to a nursing home since we cannot take of her. She had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, and I couldn’t get her back up to the apartment by myself. Thankfully there was a kind neighbor nearby to help me.

The problem: Medicare won’t cover the cost of a nursing home unless she was hospitalized for three nights. They only approved her for a two-night stay. They are so clever.

So we don’t know what to do. Her doctor said we have to wait until her next hospitalization and hope we get lucky.

Saturday morning as I was cleaning the apartment up a little, I thought about how I miss my carefree life of my 20s and early-30s. I miss the wild days, the booze the drugs. The sloppy kisses, the desperate tongues. The moaning and groaning. The sweat, spit and cum.

On second thought, however, most of that never happened. There were a couple of nights of boozing and drugs, of course. But there I was in the kitchen reminiscing on nights that never happened. And that realization brought a wave of regret over me. Here I am now living in regret.

What you see here is an empty bed. Well, not a bed proper, but this here in the living room is where The Grandmother sleeps/lives. She’s an old-school Korean, and old habits die hard. (So if anyone wants to know why I don’t have anyone over, c’est la raison.)

Recently The Grandmother has been weaker than normal, and gradually her appetite left her. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but on Wednesday night she started having to go to the bathroom a lot. Like every 30 minutes or so. That’s when I knew she had a bladder infection.

I took her to the nearest urgent care yesterday afternoon, and she couldn’t urinate. No sample, no prescription for antibiotics. And for some strange reason, they couldn’t use a catheter at that facility. So we had to go to the emergency room.

But The Grandmother was really wiped out from all of this, and by this time it was 6 pm and I still hadn’t eaten. At 7:30 I tried to get her to go to the hospital, and she physically couldn’t. For the very first time in my life, I had to call 911.

The Grandmother was pissed at me. The whole time in the ambulance she kept glaring at me saying, “Are you having fun? Are you enjoying this?”

Irregardless, she did have a bladder infection, and she will be all right. There’s also an issue with opioid-caused constipation that gives her hard stools which is what is leading to all these bladder infections.

She’ll be in the hospital for another night at least. I’m not feeling any of the emotions I felt last year when she was going through all of these problems. Since I know what they are, there’s not too much uncertainty in my mind.

But I do know that the family will need to start thinking about professional care, because it’s pretty damn expensive to have to call an ambulance each time The Grandmother needs to go to the hospital.

I left the hospital at 11pm last night since I was having trouble forming words. My aunt-by-marriage took over the overnight hours. I came home to an empty apartment. Not since I’ve moved back to The Pedro have I had an apartment to myself.

It was odd and liberating. I remembered what it felt like to be living by myself. Then, of course, I remember why I had the place to myself, and the pangs of guilt started to creep in.

When I heard the little asshole deliberately went into a gay bar to shoot it up because he didn’t like boys kissing boys and girls kissing girls and undeclared kissing everyone, I went past sadness and grief to anger. Fuck this little asshole who wants my fellow fags to live in fear.

Fuck the glad-handing hypocrite politicians who send their “thoughts and prayers” but privately are jumping for joy and screaming hallelujah because 50 fags were killed.

Fuck G4S, the privatized militia, jailors, etc. who employed this little asshole and who I’m convinced helped the little asshole believe that violence is good, violence is capital.

Fuck all of the gun apologists — I’m tired of hearing your equally tired excuses gunsdon’tkillpeople thegoodguyswithgunswilltakecareofthings.

Fuck not being able to donate blood because I’m gay.

But then my life went on. I had an apartment to clean, laundry to do, groceries to buy for the Grandmother. Now the anger has dulled to sadness. Hopefully tomorrow will be a more uplifting day.