I personally feel that people who do unsuccessfully attempt suicide have a whole different set of issues as well. Depending on the circumstances surrounding it, he could have been wanting to punish his son's for the way they have been acting by harming himself. It could be an attention thing. I hate to make inferences about people and situations that I do not know anything about. I guess my main point is that there could be a large host of problems that your grandfather was encountering when he made the decision to do what he did. You have to keep an open mind and if you want to try to make any progress towards resolution keep an open dialogue with him and try to get him to verbalize what he was thinking/feeling.