Derek Zimmerman
Despite pain so great that he was taking daily doses of morphine (and still grimaced whenever he stood up or sat down), he stood tall and straight, head thrown back, as he belted out Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.” It was his last Christmas, and he knew it, but he was radiant. He would not let anything put a damper on his spirits. That was my Opa—Ben Zumpe.
Opa (German for “Grandpa”) was sixty-seven when he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, and his doctors warned him that he had only six months to live. But even though that had happened the previous June, the fact that he was dying was still hard to imagine. He was still athletic, he still had a shock of jet-black hair (no gray or white), and he was still more active than many people half his age.
Opa’s warmth, enthusiasm, and thick German accent (his way of saying “mah-velous” always made people think of Arnold Schwarzenegger) won people over immediately. Even when the back pain caused by his cancer was killing him, he would joke with his doctors, and when someone would gasp at the size of the needles the nurses used for a certain weekly injection, he’d just laugh: “Those look big enough for a horse.”
In the last month of his life, he lost his taste for alcohol, but was still eager to pour Jägermeister and wine for the adults in our family circle, and to share his special Swiss chocolate with me and my brothers and the other grandkids. Even when he was nauseated, he wanted those around him to feel at home. When someone in the room would refer to his illness, he’d often change the subject by grinning and saying: “Let’s not be morose. Let’s celebrate! This might be our last Christmas together!”
On the other hand, he was not at all superficial. Even if he was the life of every party, he never drew attention to himself, but was always far more interested in what the shy or quiet person on the edge of the room had to say. And though he liked to spin long yarns about his many adventures—his family had escaped Nazi Germany when he was a child, and he had grown up in the jungles of Paraguay, and gone to art school in Europe—he could also be serious. Once when he was telling me about his experiences as a bus driver (he had taken youth groups camping all over England, Germany, and the Northeast), he confided in me that every time he got behind the wheel, he’d say a prayer for protection, not just for himself, but also for his passengers. He was also honest about his concern for the way the world was going. He was deeply worried about the way the national climate changed after 9/11, and feared that things would only get worse. In fact, politics was about the only thing he couldn’t find a positive angle on. I don’t think I ever heard him say anything good about Bush.
Opa took me fishing in the Catskills the fall before he died, and after I caught a trout, he showed me how to clean it and fry it. In November, we went to the lake one more time. It was so cold that my mom wrapped a towel around his shoulders and over his head. He was grateful for this, but insisted she take it off when as we headed back to the car. “People will think I’m Mother Teresa!” he complained. I don’t think he really enjoyed that outing. He came along because he wanted to give me one last memory of fishing with him.
When it was clear that the end was near, my entire extended family and dozens of Opa’s friends gathered around his bed, and we sang the German folksongs he’d grown up with, and the spirituals he knew from marching with Martin Luther King in the South in the Sixties. It was an honor for me to hold his hand as we sang, and to look into his eyes. During his last hours, pain wracked his body so severely that all you could do was cry, and everyone in the room felt so helpless. Still, there was a strong sense of redemption, because Opa was at peace with himself and those of us around him, and because he had lived life to the full. Opa was courageous and uncomplaining to his last breath. I still connect with his spirit whenever I think of him.
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