My grandfather died when I was twenty one. �Were you close?� People ask. �Of course,� I respond, �he was my grandfather.�

The weeks before he died he started losing his control over his life. The tumor was causing a bowel obstruction, which was incredibly uncomfortable. He was an artist, and had spent most of his life on his feet, so having to stay seated for all that time was also uncomfortable. He would sit askew in his favorite easy chair, one leg propped up on an arm of the chair. He stopped eating food, and stopped drinking Diet Pepsis.

That was the summer I learned that CNN would cycle their stories every half hour. CNN was still rather new and didn�t have all the other special interest programming on during the day, so they would just replay the news every half hour, adding important stories as they broke. I would sit with my grandfather in their living room and watch CNN all day long. Perhaps I should rephrase that- I would watch CNN and he would stare out the window.

As he had started getting more and more ill he would sit for longer spells in his easy chair. The chair sat opposite the big glass front window looking out upon the front yard. As my grandfather spent more time in his easy chair staring out the window, my grandmother started feeding the birds so they would come and visit in the tree outside the window. All day long the birds came and ate and played and fought outside that window, and my grandfather sat and watched them. And I sat and watched CNN.

I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn�t talk. He was so quiet, only speaking to have me get him a tissue. I would tell him silly stories but he never seemed to be listening. Always, staring out the window.

He was producing art all the while. When he was unable to get to his studio, his apprentices would bring his art to him, for final approval on the pieces. At first he would go out to the truck with the sculpture, but eventually he wasn�t able to do that so he would send me.

�I don�t know how to approve a bronze, grandpa.� I would say.

�Just run your fingers over the whole thing. Feel for places where little bits of bronze are sticking out. Feel in the eyes of the sculpture that it�s smooth. Then come back and tell me.� He instructed me, and I went out to approve the sculpture. I ran my hands over the piece, and felt for imperfections. Then I looked closely at the face, and then felt the face, imagining my hands were his hands and I was telepathically sending the sensation of fingers on bronze back to him in the house. The sculpture looked back at me with golden-bronze eyes.

I remember sitting there on their uncomfortable couch, waiting for him to do something.

One day we heard a noise coming from the roof. A bird was tapping at the corner of the roof for some reason. The tapping wouldn�t stop- over and over all day. The tapping was loud enough to hear over CNN. We tried going outside to scare the bird away but it didn�t stop tapping. It sounded like the bird was going to peck its way through the ceiling. I mentioned that they sold plastic owl models at the birdfood store, to scare away jays. My grandmother dragged me out of the room and reprimanded me firmly, �Apaches hate owls. They are very bad luck. Don�t ever talk about birds around your grandfather again.�

My uncle climbed up on the roof and saw that the bird was a raven, jet black and big. He shooed it away but it came right back once my uncle was off the roof. Someone climbed up there and tried to put aluminum foil down to distract the bird but that didn�t work either. The tapping continued.

One morning my grandfather decided to stay in bed. He saw visitors all day, the last visitor being his second oldest son, who finally made it in from Tuscon. He died later that night.

Midday the next day someone pointed out the silence. The tapping stopped and the raven had moved on. If death had a color, it would be the shiny blue black, like the feathers of a raven.