Grandma

A true story.

As Charles lay dying from the cancer that had ravaged his body and finally his brain, he suddenly sat up in bed. His eyes were feverish, glazed over with the brightness that shines only from the eyes of the dying, and they were fixed on a point in the far corner of the bedroom.

“Grandma!” he exclaimed. His finger pointed to the corner. His face lit up with a smile of pure joy.

“Grandma!” he cried again. He was happy, exhilarated, connected to someone that no one else in the room could see. Grandma had been dead for over 30 years.

From the chair on the other side of the bed, his sister Susie looked at me in amazement. Our wide eyes twin mirrors. We peered into the corner trying to discern human shape and form in its shadows - his certainty momentarily confusing us; both of us fully expecting, I think, to see her standing there. But nothing was revealed to us in that corner, it was empty. And I understood that the end was coming very soon now.

“She’s come for me,” he said. And she had. He fell back onto his pillows, his face - so animated only moments ago, now fallen back into its dying hollows. His eyes still bright, but closing, that small exertion having fully exhausted him.

I lay next to him on my side. My arm across his chest, my torso pressed up to his warm body and my head on the edge of his shoulder; I rested as gently as I could against him, afraid to add to his pain.

“I see her,” I said. I could hear his heart beating, hear the anguished labor of his breathing. I carefully pulled myself even closer to him, encompassing his frail, ravaged body in my embrace, creating an awkward chrysalis from which only one of us would emerge a butterfly.

He closed his eyes and fell into a fitful sleep. I met his sister’s eyes on the side of the bed. She was holding his hand tightly and weeping.

I must have dozed; when I awoke, my eyes were heavy with sleep and tears and pain, my glasses lost somewhere in the bed. The room was dimly lit and as I looked toward Susie’s chair, I caught my breath. It was Charles! He was sitting in the chair, wrapped in a blanket and wearing his silly woolen ski cap that he donned when the Los Angeles temps dared dip below 65. He met my gaze and smiled at me. I didn’t understand - but a miracle had occurred and I had missed it. No matter, shocked, joyful, I began to reach for him.

Then I heard it - the ragged breath, the struggle to fill the lungs, and I realized that my arm was still across his chest, my body still pressed against his, my head still resting on his shoulder - and I suddenly understood. The temperature in the room had dropped while I dozed and a chilled Susie, who looked so much like her brother, had found her brother’s woolen ski cap and thrown a blanket across her shoulders. Without my glasses and bundled up as she was, I mistook her for Charles.

My heart so heavy in my chest; that last, tiny bit of unreasonable hope that he would beat the cancer, that he could win this battle, finally and utterly crushed.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

Author's Note

Thank you for your thoughts.

Reviews

[y0shek]

Very, very good. What can I say to improve on? The brevity adds to the immediacy, so I like that. The narrator is well developed because we get to see his/her emotions. I suppose I would like some more back story on Charles. The relationship between the protagonist and Charles is a little vague. These are both auxiliary things though... extras. It may not need any extras, though. In any event, you've got the primary part down pat.

[Pamela Pletz]

Thank you, y0shek! This is a true story about a few hours in the last days of my husband Charles. I was trying to accomplish the emotion of the event in as few words as possible. I look forward to reading your writings!

[Prritiy]

it brought tears in my eyes.
nicely written.

[Pamela Pletz]

Wow, thank you, Prritiy! High praise much appreciated.

[Prritiy]

you are welcome

[Faolan]

We got to see the character's emotions!!! (SQUEE!!!) I love it!!

[Marc Marlon Villaflor]

Very moving write, love the story.

[mariehelene]

I as an artist find the most complementary thing anyone can say about anyones work wether it be photography , writing, or art is that it touched a cord. We have dealt with cancer , I have had it , and have dealt with it in other family members, you have touched the painful core of it all, and dared to write about it as well as share it. Thank you. It was well written, and so very intimate. Thank you for your gift of words and the courage to share it.

[Pamela Pletz]

Thank you, mariehelene. It was the most difficult period of my life and the hardest thing I've ever faced. I try to write from the heart, and not sugar coat my life's experiences. My goal is to be real and relatable.

[Trigorin]

Really not bad. You have a good concept and the brevity of the piece means you had to focus on that concept exclusively, which makes the whole come across as very polished and well done.

[iliOZ]

pamela.
your passion captured me, perhaps i am vulnerable today more than on another one.
nonetheless i have askes you to become my friend...
thanks

[Samuel Dickens]

This gripping, heart-wrenching and very well-told. As my dad lay dying of cancer, he saw his grandson who'd been murdered nine years previous. So yes, these things do occur. Thank you for sharing this.