Grant Lee, RIP
Becca Gilman • May 10th, 2009It finally happened. A very close friend of mine, Grant Lee, died two days ago. He was twenty-four. I have been unable to get much information from his family. I talked to his older sister, Claire. Grant died at work, at the Pizza Joint, two blocks from my apartment. She said his death was sudden and “catastrophic.” I asked if he died from an aneurysm. Claire said the doctors told the family it was likely heart failure, but they wouldn’t tell them anything specific. I then asked for information about the hospital he went to, but she rushed me off the phone, saying she had too many calls to make. I called the Pizza Joint, wanting to talk to the co-worker who had found Grant dead, but no one answered the phone. I’m going to take a walk down there after I post this. It’s awful and terrifying enough that Grant died, but it looks like his cause of death will be covered up as well.
I met Grant in a video store a week after I’d moved to Brooklyn. We rented Nintendo Wii games and old noir flicks together. Grant ate ice cream with a fork. He always wore a white tee shirt under another shirt, even if the other shirt was another white tee shirt. Grant was tall, and slight of build, but very fast, and elegant when he moved. I’d never seen him stumble or fall down. He worked long hours at the Pizza Joint, trying to pay off the final four-grand of tuition he owed NYU so he could get his diploma. That debt wasn’t Grant’s fault. His father was a gambler and couldn’t pay that final tab. Grant had a crooked smile and he only trusted a few of his friends. I think he trusted me. Grant liked to swear a lot. He liked fucking with the Pizza Joint customers whenever he could. Sometimes he’d greet an obnoxious-looking customer with silence and head nods only. Invariably, the obnoxious-looking customer would talk slow and loud because they assumed Grant (who was Korean) didn’t speak English. They’d mumble exasperated stuff under their breath when Grant didn’t respond. Finally, he’d give the customer their pizza and make some comment like, “You gonna eat all that? You leavin’ town or somethin’?” and his voice was loud and had that thick Long Island accent of his. Grant drank orange soda all day long. Grant would be too quick to tease sometimes, but he always gave me an unqualified apology if I needed one.
Grant was more than a collection of eccentricities or character traits, but that is what he’s been reduced to. I love you and miss you, Grant.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
If you are telling the truth (sorry to sound so callous, but I don’t know you, and given your blogging history, your agenda, it’s entirely plausible you are making this up to bolster your position, as it were), I’m very sorry for your loss.
I don’t know what to believe though. Look at your first sentence: It finally happened. Maybe this is just a throw away phrase written while in the throws of grief, however it seems like an odd line to lead your post. It finally happened. It sounds like not only were you anticipating such an event, but are welcoming it so your version of reality could somehow be verified.
I find it impossible to believe that doctors would give the family of the deceased no cause of death, or a fraudulent cause of death as you are implying. To what benefit or end would such a practice serve?
And please see and respond to the links and aneurysm statistics I quoted in your earlier post.
May 10th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I’m so, so sorry to hear this, Becca. Poor Grant.
Take care of yourself and ignore that Jenn Parker troll. Call me if you feel up to it, okay?
May 11th, 2009 at 3:36 am
sorry about your friend its so scarey that were all gonna die
May 12th, 2009 at 10:56 am
I’ve spent the past week doing nothing but reading obituaries from every newspaper I can find online. I read Grant Lee’s obit and followed links to his MySpace and then here to your blog.
My son died last week. I was with him in the backyard when he just folded in on himself, falling to the grass. His eyes were closed and blood trickled out of his ears. He was only six. I suppose that his young age is supposed to make it worse, but it can’t be any worse.
I’m afraid to write his name, as if writing it here makes what happened to him more final than it already is.
Someone else, not me, wrote my son’s obituary. I don’t remember who. They did a terrible job.
When we first came home, after leaving his body at the hospital, I went into his room and found some crumpled up drawings under his bed. There were two figures in black on the paper, monstrously sized, but human, small heads, no mouths, just two circles for eyes, but all black. They had black guns and they sprayed black bullets all over the page. The bullets were hard slashes, big as knives, black too, and they curved. I have no idea what it means or where it came from.
Was it a sketch of a nightmare, did he see something on TV he shouldn’t have, was he drawing these scenes with friends at school? Why did he crumple the drawings up and stuff them under his bed? Did he think that they were ‘bad’ that he couldn’t show them to me, talk about it with me, that I’d be so upset with him that I’d feel differently about him if I were to see the pictures?
It’s this last scenario that sends me to the computer and reading other people’s obituaries.