I Sat With My Dying Grandfather for Six Weeks and Never Asked What Mattered My grandfather and I sat in the same room for the last six weeks of his life, and I never once asked him the questions I actually wanted answered. I asked about his medication. I asked if he was comfortable. I asked if he wanted the window open or closed. I never asked what he was afraid of. I never asked if he had regrets. I never asked what he wanted me to remember about him after he was gone. ――― He would sit by the window most afternoons, watching the street where he'd lived for forty-one years, and I would sit across from him, both of us saying nothing that mattered. "Did you eat?" "Are you cold?" "Do you need anything?" Small, safe questions, the kind that fill a silence without ever touching it. ――― One afternoon he said, unprompted, "I used to think I had more time to say things." I said, "You still do." He looked at me for a long moment, and I understood, even then, that we both knew that wasn't true, and that neither of us was going to say the real thing underneath it. ――― Why we don't ask I've thought about this for years since, and I think the real questions felt too heavy to hand someone who was already carrying so much. I think I was afraid that asking "what are you afraid of" would make him more afraid, and that asking "do you have regrets" would make him carry them more visibly, so I protected him from my questions, when what he probably wanted was just to be asked. ――― The one thing he did say Near the end, he took my hand and said, "You were always the one who sat with me." Not what I regret. Not what I'm afraid of. Just that I had been there, in the chair, asking small questions, and that apparently had been enough for him, even though it had never felt like enough to me. ――― From Homeriah You may never ask the big questions in time. But sitting there, asking the small ones, might matter more than you think. ――― Memory Prompt Think of someone you're afraid to ask a real question. Write down what you'd ask if you weren't afraid. Then decide if this week is the week you finally ask it.