August

Don't you wish sometimes that everything could stay the same forever? A perfect moment stretched out for the rest of your life? Why do things always have to change so much, anyway?

My name is Yumi Ruíz-Hirsch, and my grandfather is dying. It feels funny to call him "my grandfather" because from the time I could talk, he insisted that I call him Saul. Nobody else I know calls their grandparents by their real names. Saul is Jewish, and my grandmother is Japanese and she's twenty-five years younger than him. Her name is Hiroko, and I call her by her first name too. When I tried calling my mother "Silvia," she refused to answer me. She's Cuban (with a little Guatemalan thrown in), and nobody in her family calls their elders by their first names. Mom says this mix of identities makes me a poster child for the twenty-first century.

Saul turned ninety-two on August 21. This was the day the doctors told him he had lymphoma. They said that the cancer was spreading all over his body and that he had maybe five or six months to live. Saul's reaction was very matter-of-fact. Get me outta here. That's how Saul talks, always fussing and complaining, but he's a softie inside. Saul says he doesn't want chemotherapy or anything else that might make him live longer. Basically, he doesn't want to suffer. He doesn't believe in pointless sacrificing either, so when the doctor told him to cut out his daily steak and cigar, Saul stormed out of his office without saying good-bye.

Mom told me about the cancer on my last day of surf camp. After a month of begging, I finally convinced her surfing wasn't too dangerous. She wanted me to take up ballet again, which I'd dropped the year before. If I never see another leotar