*The Trouble with Grandpa* by Arlan Andrews, Sr.
       Sometimes two problems can solve each other....
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       The trouble with Grampa is, he's dead.
       He and Gramma died today and went to Heaven together and left us all behind. I don't know where Heaven is, except it's up in the sky.
       I miss them. I loved Grampa and Gramma; they were a lot of fun and took me places and played with me and made me laugh. Now they are gone forever. I don't know why they left me.
       But Uncle Ryan says he will explain it all to me tonight.
       I hope he does. I am very sad. I am only seven years old and I don't understand _dead._
         * * *
The funeral service took place inside the auditorium of a large suburban church on the east coast of Florida, a subdued but still opulent and mostly transparent buckytube edifice replete with the latest technologies of the year 2025. Flanked by life-sized holostills of the two small, elderly, gray-haired people of whom he would speak, the minister raised his head to preach to the assemblage of mourners. "I welcome all of you," he said, standing behind his pulpit. "We are here for the last memorial to this loving couple, who chose to leave this world: a loving father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and a loving mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Having lived out their lives as they wished, having seen their descendants grow and prosper, they made their mutual decision to depart from us all -- together, forever."
       In the congregation of several dozen somber relatives, some fought back tears, others just shook their heads. Unhappy murmurings suffused the group. "Why couldn't they wait?" "They didn't have to end it _this _way." Arrays of the church's microcameras scanned the preacher, the audience, and the lifelike images of the elderly couple, transmitting the memorial services around the world to other family members and friends who were attending electronically, plus a few million interested or at least voyeuristic webbies.
       As the minister spoke, all of the church's inner walls blazed with recorded images of the old people's lives, from modern 3D-VR imagery, to snippets of old-time family DVD videos and even scratchy flatfilm images, scenes dancing across multiply-tiled displays, a kaleidoscope of pictures reviewing the long lives of the couple, their triumphs and tragedies, their travels and travails.
       In a forgiving but world-weary voice-over, the clergyman briefly summarized the lives of the two loved ones. "Happy they were for many years, as you all knew. Sad they were, sometimes, as families broke apart and were alienated; soberly they watched as their grandchildren went to war, happy as they all returned. Grateful they were for the reconciliations. And especially for the newest generation."
       He ended the services with a five-minute sermon on the effects of life's choices on those left behind. "I need not repeat to you all here today that some choices in life bring continued happiness, while others bring confusion and doubt and pain. It has always been thus in human affairs, but in our faith we have the absolutely certain knowledge of resurrection and life in a better place. Let us pray."
         * * *
"At least the service was short and to the point," Ryan, the eldest grandson, said to the group assembled around the dining table in his elegant beach house. His private jump-jet fleet had flown most of them here, but two of his cousins were present via 3D-VR only, background images of dark space scenes from High Hong Kong contrasting with brightly-lit mining operations somewhere in the Republic of Alaskiberia. "I don't think Grandpa and Grandma would have wanted it long and drawn out." The other nine grandchildren concurred. After the services, Grandpa and Grandma's six children, now approaching elderly life themselves, were convening together at a nearby seaside hotel to console each other, while these, their ten grandchildren and sigs were meeting at one of Ryan's several homes, a luxury ClearWall estate on Cocoa Beach.
       Outside on the bright white sand, a gaggle of great-grandchildren of varying ages, from toddlers to teenagers, were choosing up sides and sorting out the latest multi-_verch_ games. Some of their holocostumes were outrageous, Ryan thought, and it amused him to watch through transparent walls and see giant Vikings doing battle with purple sea-serpents emerging from the surf. Some of Cousin Alex's holoproducts were really _fun_ to watch. At least most of the kids were enjoying themselves, not yet truly aware that the elders of their family were gone for good. Except for little Andrei, the one who sat under the palm tree, staring at the sky. Ryan sighed, not looking forward to the task he had to perform tonight: He had promised Andrei to explain all about death, and why Grandpa and Grandma would not be returning.
       "I still don't understand it," the VR-image of Senator Addison Kirby said, the New Capitol Building visible in the background, overarched by Pike's Peak and the long blue snow-capped wall of the Rockies. "They were only in their eighties; couldn't they have taken some rejuve treatments and had more years here with all of us? The costs would have been borne by Consensual Security." He sighed, "With my political contacts, I could have ensured their priority in the queue. I sometimes think they were just too selfish, going out like this."
       Cousin Silk, the nangeneer, quickly broke in from her office in High Hong Kong. "Yes, but the rejuve treatments are still too primitive, and they would have stayed the same apparent age. Who wants to stay eighty years old for twenty more years?
       "And there's a danger that the current processes might make them immune to the ones that we see coming along in a few years. My nanossociates tell me that fairly soon they might be able to stop all aging, forever. So we just have to wait a while longer."
       "But they couldn't take that chance, not at their age," Ryan said softly.
       Sarah K., a Web-renowned cybersculptor, nodded her head in agreement. "Right, why would they have wanted to chance it and stick around for a few more decades, still in elderly bodies, and perhaps cut themselves out of the chance for true immortality? Or died in the meantime?" She shrugged. "You all knew them; they enjoyed gambling, but theirs was a choice I myself would find hard to make. At least most of us here can wait until our fifties to face that decision."
       Alex couldn't take it any more. "Damn it, cousins!" he shouted, "And Liz, Ian," that, quietly, nodding toward the end of the table, "We all _know_ why we're here mourning when we should be happy for them! It's because we are _jealous_. They are gone forever, to a happier place, while we will stay here and grow old." His cousins and siblings smiled; there was that famous spec-fi game-writer's angst again.
       "So what if we _can_ get permanently rejuved in twenty or thirty years? What if we _can_ live forever?" Sarah K. paused, pointing through the transparent ClearWall toward the sky. "_They_ will be up there, always. But _we _won't ever want to go. What if we cheat ourselves out of a better world than we know?"
         * * *
Hours later, near midnight, the grandchildren were alone at the large table, their sigs long since tired of the soul-wrenching arguments and recriminations, long since retired to the many bedrooms. The older great-grandkids were back outside on the beach, taking advantage of the soft summer moonlit night and playing glow-ball games. Only little Andrei had stayed up, Ryan noted, still leaning against his palm tree, still staring at the sky. _So serious for a seven-year-old!_
       "So it boils down to this: Right now, rejuve technology is still in its infancy," Ryan said. "You take some quick treatments, stay at your apparent age for a decade or two at most, then die." His sisters and cousins nodded.
       The senator chimed in, "But if you go into a rejuve chamber, under total suspension, then the techies can actually reverse the aging process, right?" Solar power satellites, glowing like miniature moons, silhouetted the Rocky Mountains behind his image.
       "That takes so _long_," Sarah K. came back. "You'd have to stay in suspended animation in a chamber ten years to drive your final apparent age back only ten."
       "Right," Lauren spoke up, "The latest approved rejuve process -- the one we're using now -- still takes one year in the tanks to come out one year younger than when you started, but things are improving. Only twelve months ago, you needed _two_ years in the tank to get one year younger. Someday it may get a lot better, but we can't know that yet."
       Alex said, "So, Lauren, at the moment, the best your nanodocs could have done for Grandpa and Grandma, to take them from their real age of eighty-five years old back to a physiological age of thirty years, would require them spending fifty-five years knocked out in a treatment chamber?"
       "Correct, Cousin. And nobody would want to do that -- the world would change too much, and all the family relationships would be screwed up. They might not even want to exist in the world of fifty-five years from now. That's why they made the choice to end their lives here. Let's have our cousin here do the details." But before the family's AstroSosh could speak, some of the older great-grandkids came in from the beach games, shouting. "It's time, everybody. It's time to see the show!"
       Ryan, noting that Andrei still sat alone, soberly assessing the situation with seven-year seriousness, motioned for Andrei's mother to go be with her sad son.
         * * *
Two generations stood on the moonlit, midnight sands of Cocoa Beach, watching toward the north. An immense orange flare suddenly blossomed on the dark distant horizon, followed by a glowing column of cloud like a moving finger writing large and bright upwards across the sky, a luminous plume reaching for the heavens. As the bright vertical streak faded away to darkness, a dozen laser-launch green beams stabbed the night sky, their ribbed, conical array converging to push a tiny bright speck on up and out of sight. Some on the beach cheered -- at least the kids did. Some of the adults shook their heads; a few people cried and turned back toward the shelter of the condo, unable to watch any more, unable to understand.
       Little Andrei, now standing in awe of the spectacular launch, held onto his mother's hand very tightly, big tears in his eyes. He didn't understand any of this.
       Ryan looked over at him, meeting his nephew's pleading gaze, and knew he was chosen to be the male component of the _ad hoc_ family. He had to comfort the boy.
         * * *
"Nothing lives forever, Andrei," Uncle Ryan told me. We were sitting at a big table, with Uncle Alex and Aunt Lauren and Aunt Sarah and Aunt Kristen and both Uncle Ians and my mom. Aunt Silk and Uncle Kirby were there, too, in their funny VR tubes. Everybody was looking at Uncle Ryan and me. "Everything lives out a life-span, and then everything dies." He looked me right in the eyes when he said that, so I knew he was telling me the truth, but I didn't know what he meant. "Do you remember your white mouse?"
       "Yes, sir, Uncle Ryan," I said, "I remember Mikkie." I remembered being very sad when Mikkie stopped moving a long time ago, and Mom said we had to put him in a little box and bury him in the flower garden planter. Maybe _dead_ means being buried in a little box in the planter? I didn't see how Grampa and Gramma could fit in a box in a planter, and the idea scared me. I bit my lip and tears came to my eyes.
       Uncle Ryan kept talking to me. "Andrei, Mikkie is dead, because after a while, like a machine, the body wears out. Like some of your microtoy robots and dolls."
       "So they just need new batteries?" Maybe there was hope for Grampa and Gramma!
       Uncle Ryan looked at me funny. "No," he said, "until now, all the way from the cave-person days, people's bodies wore out and when they couldn't function any more, they stopped. That is what we call _death_."
       I didn't know what he meant. Uncle Ryan knew I didn't know, and he acted like he might be angry with me. "Remember their hair, changing to white?" No, it was always white to me. He rubbed his hands and put all of his fingers together like he was real nervous or something.
       "Grandpa once had dark brown hair, like mine," he said real slowly, "and Gramma had bright red hair, like Aunt Silk's." I laughed at that. I didn't believe him.
       "And once, their skin was as smooth as yours." I looked at my arms. But Grampa and Gramma had lots of loose skin, with blue streaks and lots of wrinkles.
       "And they used to be able to run almost as fast as Aunt Silk." But _nobody_ could run that fast. She was a running champion of some kind -- she was on VR a lot. Grampa and Gramma kind of hobbled around, real slow, and always hurt a lot, they said. I remembered that, but I didn't say anything.
       "So, Andrei, you see that people's bodies wear out, then their hearts stop working, and that is _death_."
       I understood what he was saying at last, and I began crying again. "Then they are gone away. You put them in boxes and put them in the dirt?"
       Uncle Ryan sighed and looked at my aunts and uncles and my mom and shook his head.
       "You mentioned new batteries, Andrei?" I nodded.
       "Well, in a way, Grandpa and Grandma have some new batteries, but it is going to take a long time for them to charge up."
       I was happy! "I can see them again, when they're charged up again?"
       "No, I'm afraid not," Uncle Ryan said. "It is going to take them a very, very long time to get 'charged up' again. And they will be a long way from here when that happens."
       I guess I really didn't understand _dead_ after all, and I didn't understand anything he was saying now. I just wanted to see my grampa and gramma again, while they were recharging. I was about to start crying when he wagged a finger at me. I stopped.
       "Andrei, the lightship we saw launched tonight will sail for fifty-five years to a star that is called Alpha Centauri."
       I understood going to the stars. I had seen lots telescope pictures on the VR of the planets of Alfie Sentry -- of that star. They looked like little blue and white and green balls and my Mom had said people could live on them some day, according to the instruments. "Can I go see it, outside, now, Uncle Ryan? Maybe I can see Grampa and Gramma up there? With a telescope?"
       "No, not tonight, but later, I promise I will take you to a place where you can look up and see that star." He smiled at me, I guess happy with me 'cause I knew stars. But I really wasn't sure why Grampa and Gramma would go away without me.
       "Andrei, Grandpa and Grandma are in rejuvenation chambers on that lightship, and they are traveling toward Alpha Centauri at 8 percent of lightspeed. They are being made younger by that rejuve process, and they will be sleeping all the way through it. By the time they arrive, fifty-five years from now, they will be the same age as your Aunt Sarah and your Aunt Lauren and your Uncle Alex are now: thirty years old." I was trying to understand, but it was too hard. So I just smiled and nodded, and Uncle Ryan was happy at last. The way Mom always is when I do that. I do that a lot.
       Aunt Sarah came over and hugged me, with tears in her eyes. "Andrei, we are so happy you understand what is happening. Your grampa and gramma will wake up orbiting a new world. They will be young and have a whole new life ahead of them."
       "Is that new world Heaven?" I asked. All my aunts and uncles started crying and got up and began hugging each other.
       Aunt Lauren just looked at me and said, "Yes, Andrei, I think it will be called Heaven."
       At last I knew what Uncle Ryan meant. I jumped up from the table, laughing. I ran outside and started singing all the songs I knew, pointing at the magical stars, waving at Grampa and Gramma. Maybe they could see me down here, someday.
       At last I _really_ understood. From all the fairy tales, I knew about sleeping for a long time and waking up in a magic place.
       I still don't know what _dead_ is, but I do understand _magic_.

       Copyright (C) 2002 by Arlan Andrews, Sr.