When I was little, I spent my pre-teen summers with my grandfather in Korea. He was a retired salesman who spent his time coaching the local high school soccer team. In the hot, humid summers, he would coach me in an equally intensive sport: gardening. His backyard spanned half an acre of trees, ferns, and cabbage. But his most labored love was his grapevine. Together, we built fences eight feet tall, allowing for her to expand her leaves reaching for the sun. She protected me from the heat like green clouds in the sky, dropping sugary fruit from the heavens.
One day, my grandfather handed me garden sheers with large rusty blades. He said we would prune vines that day. Unsure of what pruning was, I followed his direction: cut each branch he pointed at. My sheers would slice the darkened bark and reveal a white-greenish core, where glistening sap dripped at the center. The grapevine’s branches would fall to the floor with a thud and all the grapes would scatter like marbles.
My grandfather pointed to various branches of the vine, “This one is infected. This one has been eaten by insects. This one is too small.” I nodded with each response but could not understand the differences between the branches we cut and the ones we spared.
We came onto a large branch that was sturdy and strong. Its bark was like the thickness of a tree and would not break under my grandfather’s bare hands. I prepared to move on to the next branch until my grandfather placed his hand on my chest. He pulled me to the branch and said
“Look, it’s dying.”
I was confused. “How? It’s so big. It must be alive.”
He considered, “You’re right. It is alive and growing well. But, if we allow this one to grow, it will steal the energy from the main branch, and go in a different direction. That’s not where we want to take it.”
For the first time, I saw the grapevine as one connected system, and I understood. This sturdy branch deviated almost exactly at a 90° angle. Like a rebellious teenager, she wanted nothing to do with her parent. Allowing this one branch to grow meant the entire grapevine would die. Her growth would be her downfall.
My grandfather noticed my childish stubbornness and assured me that this was for the whole grapevine. It’s better this way. Not wanting to cause trouble, I moved on and began to squeeze with all my might to cut this rebellious branch.
Snap!
Fluid began to pulse out of the old artery with an almost desperate will. I put away my scalpel and began to sheer away more of the fat deposits surrounding the heart. Years later, in the cold air of a cadaver lab, the grapevine had taken shape, manifesting itself into an aorta branching into its capillary beds. I dug a blunt tool underneath an artery, pulled it towards the surface, and deciphered its Latin name: External Carotid; Subclavian Artery. As I followed the arterial branches, I snapped the artery in two, suspended in air with no grapes to fall.
Once again, I viewed all the blood vessels as one connected system, and I understood. My cadaver died from a stroke, specifically from cancer that had both blocked the brain’s artery and redirected new arteries for itself. This was the sturdy branch who became greedy, stealing the energy from the main branch. Her growth became her downfall.
That night, I got a call from my family stating that my grandfather had passed. He had died in his sleep. We learned that “dying in your sleep” is most often because of a dysfunction of the heart, that, for some reason, simply ceases to pump.
You would think that his body might have learned from his years of pruning. That he would know which branches were to be cut and which were to be spared. You would think that I would have remembered to return his calls.
I wondered who would care for the grapevine now. How she could grow without her pruner? Would she meet the same fate as my cadaver?
Many years ago, I asked my grandfather, “what will happen when the grapevine dies?” He turned to his vineyard and reached out, picking off one of the green grapes. He showed it to me, “Even if this grapevine falls, its sweet grapes scatter out leaving sweet memories with everyone who eats it.”
He tossed the grape in the air and I caught it in my mouth. The taste of sweet memories.