Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

When I was a young man, probably six or seven years old, I remember sitting in a sterilized hospital waiting room with my mom and my dad and my extended family. I know now it was actually a hospice, but I didn’t know what that was back then. ]

Anyway, we were sitting, waiting to get word about my great grandfather’s rapidly-failing health. He had Alzheimer’s and dementia and a score of other ailments that actively worked against him. The situation was sad for everyone other than me. I remember sitting there; not really getting what was going on but knowing I should be sad, so I seemed sad. I think I knew, even back then, that making my parents need to comfort me distracted them from my great grandpa’s inevitable end.

Finally, the doctor came out. He was dressed in all white, and at the time he looked to me like he was in a white tux like James Bond or something. It was all very fascinating. He said something quietly to my grandpa, and my grandfather’s head needed, but his eyes were glazed with tears. One tear rolled down his rough cheek.

It was the only time I had ever seen my grandfather cry. It still is. I think that single tear cemented in my head the true importance of this situation.

Apparently, what the doctor had told my grandpa was that my great grandpa was very close to passing away, and he requested to see us. We all rose solemnly and shuffled into the dark room.
The only light on my great grand father was the soft glow coming off the lamp next to his bed. The light was not at a flattering angle, making every crevice and wrinkle in his face look like a canyon in a mountain. I remember how no one cared. Appearances had never meant so little.

We all told him we loved him. One by one he called out to us, wishing us the best. The sadness hung in the room like fog. Finally, he came to me, and summoned me to his side.

Slowly I walked across the floor to his side. I knew very well these could be his last words, and it tore me up in side. I loved him. I was good to all of us.

His breath was heavy by this point. It sounded like it would get stuck in his lungs, and he had to force it out. Between heavy breaths he told me his dying words.

“Jimmy,” he said to me, getting my name wrong. “Always remember: There’s more than one way to ******** a deer.”

Then he died, quietly.

Needless to say, I was confused. I was six or seven after all. I barely knew what that meant. I knew what I deer was, but it was a very awkward car ride home as my confused and angry parents tried to explain it too me.

The family all decided to ignore his last words. They were just the mad ravings of a delusional man on his death bed after all. They decided that what he said to me didn’t mean anything. That his last words to me were nonsense. Even when I was young, this made me feel slighted.

Eventually, the will was read. My grandparents were given the majority of his money, which was ample. My aunts and uncles were given various prized family heirlooms. My parents inherited the old cabin in the woods were he spent his winters.

I used to play in that cabin all the time while I was growing up.

I met my first girlfriend near that cabin during summer. We had our first kiss there. I had my first tragic breakup there. All the time, I never got those words out of my head.

“There is more than one way to ******** a deer.”

I spent many years trying to decipher the metaphor. Finally, I decided that he was trying to tell me not to give up when I faced a problem. There is always another way.

I used this metaphor for years. When I couldn’t get my head around a homework assignment in college I would just try to look at it from a different angle. When I got bored in life or a relationship, I would try something new, to keep the relationship the same, and yet fresh.

These words, while ignored and discounted by my family, rejected for inclusion on his tombstone, served me throughout life, and really got me to where I am. The words may have been embarrassing to others, but they changed my life for many, many years.

One day, when me and my wife were staying in the cabin for our third wedding anniversary, my father called me and asked me to try to clean out the attic, because he wasn’t going to be able to before winter, and didn’t want animals making nests up there. Of course, I agreed.

I was almost half done when I found a box of old photo albums. They showed incredibly horrific images of my great grandfather ******** deer. Oh god was he ******** them. It wasn’t a metaphor for anything. He really wanted me to know that ******** a deer in just one regular way over and over would get boring.

He had the deer in positions that didn’t even make sense. I didn’t know some of them were physically possible. He even had little deer SM tables and racks. He ******** them every which was he could think of, and it turns out he was very, terrifyingly creative.

After vomiting, and having the whole meaning behind my life shatter on top of me, I called my dad.

“Oh, you found those huh?” He asked. “I thought I tossed those.”
“WHAT?? You knew?” I screamed.

“Yeah. Everyone knew. That’s why we didn’t want his last words to you recorded. We all knew he had a problem.”