Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Grandpa

Host: This next piece was produced by Lu Olkowski. It?s about one family, three generations.

Jeremiah: Introduce myself?

Host: This is Jeremiah, the youngest.

Jeremiah: I?m Jeremiah Zagar.

Host: He?s a filmmaker.

Jeremiah: Son of Isaiah Zagar.

Host: His Dad, Isaiah, is a muralist, a famous muralist.

Jeremiah: I?m the grandson of Asher Zagar.

Host: Asher Zagar is? a health nut.

(hear old man counting)

Host: This is a video of him that Jeremiah shot of Asher doing his daily exercise routine. He?s in his nineties; he?s jumping on a trampoline.

(hear old man counting)

Host: And counting each jump.

Jeremiah: How old are you now?

Asher: Me? I?m ninety.

Jeremiah: Ninety? You?re a healthy man for ninety.

Asher: Yeah, and I?ll still be healthy when I?m ninety-one and ninety-two. The great great grandfather that I?m name after live to a hundred and two.

Jeremiah: So you?re going to live until a hundred and two.

Asher: I don?t know, but maybe.

Host: At the age of ninety-three, Asher began to decline, quickly.

Jeremiah: How do you deal with a man dying in your house? How do you deal with that?

Host: The family decided to not send him to an elderly case facility instead they were going to attend to his dying.

Jeremiah: Well, you know

Host: Not just attend?

Jeremiah: My father started taking photos of him.

Host: Watch.

Isaiah: One of my modes of understanding was either drawing or photographing.

Jeremiah: Pictures. Constantly.

Isaiah: Just seeing.

Jeremiah: Thousands of slides. Thousands.

Host: That?s how it went for a while. Isaiah, the Dad, would take care of his Dad and take some photos while grandson Jeremiah, basically looked the other way.

Jeremiah: Well, I never really knew my grandfather.

Host: Then Isaiah got an idea.

Isaiah: I said to myself challenge this young boy to a duel. Who can take the most objective photos of a dying man?

Jeremiah: It wasn?t like we threw down. It wasn?t like I pulled my camera out of my holster and he pulled his camera out of his holster. It wasn?t like that. He was like he was involved in my grandfather?s death and I wasn?t and so he said this is how I get involved ? maybe you should try that, too.

Jeremiah: It?s my senior year in high school ... and I was the busboy in a restaurant down the street and I loved it ... I would bus ? tables ? ?til 2 or three in the morning and then I would get drunk ? with people after work and then I would come back and take care of my grandpa. So I would lift him up and change his sheets. Other wise his bedsore would burn. I mean he had this terrible bedsore; you can see it in the photographs. And I?d never seen anything like that before. And he would hit me while I lifted him up. And then I would photograph him ? ?cause I would want to sit with him, and you want to calm him down, so you sit with him ? and the way you sit with him? I mean, my father was right. You have the camera. I mean, that?s how you cope. Otherwise you?re sitting with him ? and he?s just looking at you

Host: During the contest Dad and Grandson shared duties of taking case of Grandpa. And at night they?d sit at the kitchen table and compare photos.

Jeremiah: I mean as soon as I took the first pictures, you knew mine were better than my father?s. Because my father?s were from far away and they were snapshots. And mine were like specific. Like I was fascinated with him dying. I wanted to know what it looked like.

Host: And this went on for about a month. During which time even Jeremiah?s friends?

Isaiah: And all of his friends

Host: Got involved.

Isaiah: In the wee hours of the night?

Jeremiah: He would wander into the basement where we were playing pool.

Isaiah: I would wake up and I would see that

Jeremiah: Who knows what he said.

Isaiah: there surrounding my father were four or five young people. Sure they were drinking beer and they were joking around and, but they were there ? they were there ? while he was there. What I remember most was waking up and seeing you and you friends changing his sheets and lifting him and moving him around.

Jeremiah: Yeah, I remember Gabriella did it with me.

Isaiah: Who else did it with you?

Jeremiah: John, Lincoln,

Isaiah: They all became initiated into the most problematic event in our lives and it was an amazingly rare scene for me ? to see these teenagers attending to death.

Isaiah: (hand rubs book) Well, this is a book of photographs of uh my father your grandfather?s last week of life ? in this very room.

Jeremiah: This is actually three weeks.

Isaiah: Three weeks?

Jeremiah: About a month

Isaiah: Okay, so the contest was about a month along. Smart guy I am.

Jeremiah: You?re good? You know how to make a contest.

Isaiah: I kept it going for one month.

Jeremiah: Good job.

(page turn)

Lu Olkowski (reporter): Isaiah, can you describe this one for me?

Isaiah: Well, the feet look like they were out in the desert ? that they?ve been baked and cracked and they?re dried dried dried out.

Jeremiah: I mean look at them, they?re like ? I mean look at the nail ? that nail is wild ? everything is wild ? the skin can do that ? I think I was amazed that the skin could do that ? I was like what the f***?

(rubbing the pages)

Isaiah: I have the same legs.

Jeremiah: Stop touching the photos.

Isaiah: I can almost feel him by feeling them ? I?ll feel you instead?

(page turn)

Jeremiah: That?s the bedsore. That?s what happens.

Isaiah: (shew) Oh, it was awful ... awful, awful ? awful, awful, awful ? a man who prided himself on his health, look what happened ... oh, how does one describe that.

Jeremiah: It looks like rotting meat.

Isaiah: I mean they?re just open wounds... you move him around ? you move him around, but still, it was impossible

Jeremiah: It?s crazy to look at the colors, too, because it?s pink, then white and then green and then brown

Isaiah: Well the white is the muscle isn?t it?

Jeremiah: I took these photos in color because in black and white, you?d never get it. You?d never get how fff-painful this must?ve been. The anus is all red I mean like, really red, and you can see that parts of it have broken and there?s just blood gushing out, and it?s dried, and then on his ass is a giant welt.

Jeremiah: I think this is the last photo.

(page turn)

Jeremiah: Woof ? this one?s tough. You can see the cognition is gone, the mouth is agape.

Isaiah: He knew it was over. It was just a matter of time now.

(page turn)

Jeremiah: That?s it. That?s the closest I got to him dying.

Isaiah: That?s right he wanted to live forever

(music)

Isaiah: The fix was in from the beginning.

Jeremiah: (laugh) The fix was in? I was supposed to win?

Isaiah: Sure ? sure ? how can it be any other way?

Jeremiah: I don?t know, I could?ve given up. You wanted me to win?

Isaiah: It was a subterfuge to get you to be with your grandfather as much as possible.

Jeremiah: I thought it was a fair fight ? it wasn?t ? ugh.

Isaiah: Can there ever be? Can there ever be?

Jeremiah: (laughing) He knew all along he couldn?t take a good picture.

Isaiah: When a person is dying, it?s very important that they?re surrounded. That they?re surrounded by the light of life and that you don?t go into the place of oblivion ? alone.

Jeremiah: You want me to be there?

Isaiah: I don?t know. At this point I don?t know. I?m not at that place yet. Well, what does that mean with the camera? Just be with me.

Jeremiah: Yeah.

Isaiah: Be with me. Be soft with me.

Jeremiah: Yeah, that?s what I guess what it?s about.

Isaiah: Be soft with me.

(music)

END

Back