Joann

“Joann, I know that you cannot respond-you’re in pain, so don’t try.  Just listen to me.  Remember a few years ago when I came to stay with you and Grandpa for a while because my mother said she did not want me?  Well, I want to thank you for treating me so well.  When my mother rejected me you made sure that I was taken care of and I really appreciate that.  You are such a great person.  I love you.  Grandpa loves you.”  She laid there unresponsive.  Her eyes shuffle back and forth in her head as if she were skimming the pages of her life written on the walls and ceiling.  She is frail; under 100 pounds now.  Her skin feels like parchment paper wrapped around animal bones.  She is so weak that she cannot blink or even hold her eyes closed.  Her breath is rapid and shallow. 

Grandpa walked into the room from the patio where he attempted to smoke one of his French cigarettes.  His eyes were pale and stony.  His posture was low and his body crept.

I knew by his voice when I called that something was horribly wrong; I knew before I called because I had not spoken with him in a few days.  So I called.  I asked if he wanted anything.  He said no.  I asked if I could come over and he said “Of course, baby.”  So I drove over to the apartment after work.  I had watched her wither away to nothing and watched him follow slowly-fighting for her life and losing his. 

The door was unlocked.  I took my shoes off.  In the living room across from the couch was her twin hospital bed.  Hospice brought it the night before.  She was naked with a sheet tucked around her.  Her arms covered in bruises from being poked and prodded and her body not having the strength to heal any more.  Her catheter hung over the side of the bed with orange urine in the bottom of the sack.  I looked to him sitting on the couch.  He did not get up to receive me.  I sat on the other side of the couch looking to this man and wondering where my grandfather was hiding.  Deep in the crevices of his shell I assumed.  His eyes were swollen with tears and he looked to me.  “I am all cried out.”  I said nothing.  The silence was a low lying rain cloud and I could feel the humidity and stickiness of the situation.

“She has fought so hard, I just keep telling her that everything is ok and she can rest now.”  He choked on a sob.  “I regret soo much!” 

“Like what?” I asked hoping for some enlightenment like the kind that comes before death in movies.

“Not telling her how much I love her every day and not showing her how much I care.  I used to tell her that I would never let anything hurt her but there are just some things that no one can keep from hurting.  So I was wrong.”  He pursed his lips and shook his head.  He put his hand to his bare chest.  “Karma is true.  But it is not biting me it is eating me alive!  This is the hardest thing I have ever done.  I wish I could trade places with her, she doesn’t deserve this.  All I can do is hope that she is not in pain.  I give her the meds but I-they can only do so much.”  He took a long pause and stood.  “It doesn’t matter what you do!  If you’re right you’re wrong and if you’re wrong you’re wrong.”  He leaned over her and whispered in her ear and began to cry once more. 

From the room he brought the last of the dogs.  A rather large cheewauwa named Cori.  Cori looked to me too tired to grow as he usually did and grandpa stood at the foot of the bed with the dog in his arms and said “Look at your beautiful Mommy.  Tell her you love her.”  He trudged outside with the dog, both of their heads hung low and hearts crippled.   

I had never seen such a tough guy, a wise guy-he was, but that was then and this is now, crumble before the face of love or death.  But this was the only family he had that had seen him through the family.  All he had left was me but that was not much no matter how much he built me up of false prophecies.  I shuffled through my mind trying desperately to find something relatively meaningful to say while I waited for him to return and feared he may not but I could not seem to scrounge even for table scraps, I was speechless. 

He came from the room slouched and snailing toward the couch.  “Do you want me to stay?”  I asked.

“No.”  He sniffled and looked to Jo.  “I do not want you to see her pass, it is too intimate for me.”  They had been married for thirty six years-longer than I had been alive.  “Alright” I said as I put my hands to my knees “I am worried about you, you know?”  He tapped his fingers impatiently, did not rise to embrace me, or tell me he loves me, or to call him or anything.

On my way home all I could think about was whether or not I would ever see my grandfather again.  I had no family left that understood me for who or what I was or took me for my worth rather than taking me for granted.  All I could do was imagine him putting a pistol to his head and waiting for Jo to take her last breath.