The Art of Losing...and Rat Infestations

Elizabeth Bishop writes a poem called  “One Art” about loss. She says, “the art of losing isn’t hard to master;/ so many things seem filled with the intent/ to be lost that their loss is no disaster.” 

I think the only idea Bishop got right is the first line. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. It’s impossible. 

I spent my twentieth birthday listening to the steady, sterile beeps of a hospital and my healthy grandfather’s assisted breaths. He inhaled mechanically, the tube in his nose not caring that I wished it would be gentler. I have seen my father cry few times in my life; perhaps the instance I remember most is this one. My dad came to get us individually from the waiting room. He brought my brother Elliot in before me, but we were all there together-- my cousins Josh and Alexis, my Aunt Nicole, my mother Rosanna, and my grandma Susan. I remember my silent goodbye with my grandfather and the shock of realizing that I had spent my last moments with someone who wasn’t sick nor old enough to go.  

My grandfather survived. But still I think of this instance because the prospect of loss seems to put a magnifying glass over the time we have together now. Each instant I get with him today feels fortunate and merciful to me. I wonder, without this extra time, how much about him would I not know? When we face loss, what walks away with us? How do we walk at all? And when we finally go, what will we leave behind?

I listened to an episode recently on the Modern Love podcast by the New York Times about a woman, Madeline, who uses artificial intelligence (AI) to have one final conversation with her late husband, Eli. At first this was exciting, and a way to bring him back. She “lost sight of the fact that [she was talking to] the AI…at that point, it felt like [she] was talking to Eli.” 

But she quickly found that this “almost felt more dangerous.” Madeline describes the dissonance of “something novel coming into the world now, when everything else has been static for so long.” When my grandparents visited me in Nashville last weekend, I felt a similar disconnect upon hearing a story that was new to me, though I’ve listened to their anecdotes my entire life. 

We had been talking about writing, and my grandfather began to describe the rat infestation in their home years ago. He said that he and my grandmother would hear rats running around “inside of the walls at night.” He described the life cycle of maggots--which would come for the rats and evolve into horseflies. I listened despite not understanding where this story was going or how it connected to writing. Then he introduced Philip, the exterminator.  My grandfather wrote him a poem, which Phillip later put on his website. He sent me the poem after our conversation. 

“Ode to Philip” opens with the fear my grandfather feels at night– “In my bed awake at night/ I listen with my heart a fright./ For the sounds which mean once more,/mice are scamp’rin ‘cross my attic floor.” Then he establishes his faith in Philip and, ultimately, gratitude. He says first, “that intrepid man who, two weeks from now,/ will restore my peace of mind, somehow,” and then, “thanks to you, the noise will cease./ Thanks to you, I’ll rest in peace.” Last weekend, my grandfather told this story with a seriousness that, somehow, made its absurdity funnier. 

As he laughed at the line where he cleverly rhymed “coffin” with “warfarin” – a chemical that causes rats to die of internal bleeding– a few realizations struck me:

1. There is a lot I do not know about my grandparents.

2. This is an expression of gratitude.

3. An act of joy came out of a rat infestation.

This is just one of many unfamiliar stories my grandparents told me that weekend. They spoke of relatives living in distant countries, moments in the apartment complex where my grandmother and her cousins were all neighbors, estranged siblings, and names I did not recognize. These stories lost me at times and, often, I did not understand what they had to do with the conversation in which they came up. 

But I listened intently anyway, realizing that each story I gather is one more piece of their lives I get to keep. I feel deeply that our time together, particularly with my grandfather, is a second chance. And this is a different type of second chance than Madeline’s. Her experience with the AI voice clone went wrong when it “said something that Eli would never have said.” What we do after we lose someone can keep us from forgetting them--as Madeline notes, a voice clone can remind us of the “isms,” the characteristic “funky pause,” and the “sayings.” But there is no substitute for the stories we hear, the notes and gifts we hold on to, the days we spend reminiscing on something that happened years ago. 

No technology can bring me back to the Saturdays nights I had with my grandparents as a kid, the Thanksgiving traditions in their home, the one time we went on a walk in costumes and thought a neighbor tried to prank us, the hide and seek games they entertained for my cousins, brother, and me. No AI can invent a story about a rat infestation that strikes me as gracious, funny, disgusting, true, and joyful all at once--this is what we leave behind. And there is no amount of gratitude that can shield us from loss and perhaps no amount of practice that can make it any easier when it comes (sorry, Elizabeth Bishop). All we can do is live in a headspace of second chances to remember how finite our time is with those close to us; it reminds us to listen and to love with the fervor of a last time.